New users of the popular browser Mozilla Firefox may notice that, when booting up their browser for the first time, they’ll be greeted with a number of tiles that include “sponsored content.”
That’s Mozilla’s fancy way of saying they’re now selling ads within their browser. This kind of defeats the purpose of their previously developed patch that was designed to block third-party ad cookies by default, right?
The reasoning behind their move is fair enough: Mozilla currently depends on Google for a substantial amount of its income, and the $300 million-per-year deal is up for renewal at the end of the year. Last time the negotiations didn’t reach a settlement until the eleventh hour, and so it’s entirely possible that Mozilla is gearing up for a break in partnership.
Mozilla has placed heavy emphasis on the fact that the sponsored content will be clearly labeled and transparent to users. And according to Darren Herman, VP of Content Services at Mozilla, it’ll also be handpicked to make sure that all participants in the advertising initiative remain in line with Mozilla’s mission statement. In short, he’s saying that the ads will only be leading to content that Firefox believes users will enjoy.
Well we’ll see, won’t we?
It’s an interesting concept for online marketing strategists, who are always looking for new ways to reach their audience. And with Firefox counting over 450 million users around the world, the ability to reach even a small portion of that with advertisements presents an endless amount of opportunities.