Mozilla will make Yahoo the default search engine in the Firefox browser as part of a five-year deal, the two companies announced Wednesday.
The partnership will make bring Yahoo search to Mozilla's desktop and mobile Web browsers in the United States, beginning in December. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Mozilla has used Google as its default global search provider in Firefox for a decade but is now opting for "a more local and flexible approach to increase choice and innovation on the Web, with new and expanded search partnerships by country," the company said.
In addition to Yahoo in the U.S., Mozilla is tapping Yandex Search for Russian Firefox users and is continuing to use Baidu in China. Firefox users around the world will still be able to use alternate, built-in search options in the browser—in the U.S., for example, Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, eBay, Amazon, Twitter, and Wikipedia will continue to be supported, the company said.
Yahoo CEO Marissa Meyer said search has been "an area of investment and opportunity" for the company in recent years.
"It's also a key growth area for us—we've now seen 11 consecutive quarters of growth in our search revenue on an ex-TAC basis," Yahoo CEO Marissa Meyer said in a blog post. "This partnership helps to expand our reach in search and gives us an opportunity to work even more closely with Mozilla to find ways to innovate in search, communications, and digital content. I'm also excited about the long-term framework we developed with Mozilla for future product integrations and expansion into international markets."
As noted by Meyer, the partnership could be extended beyond the U.S. market but so far there's no timeline for that happening.
Yahoo said it would be launching an "enhanced search experience" for Mozilla next month which "features a clean, modern and immersive design that reflects input from the Mozilla team."
As part of the deal, Yahoo will support Do Not Track (DNT) in Firefox, Mozilla said.
Google has been the default Firefox search engine since 2004 but the arrangement came up for renewal this year and Mozilla "took this as an opportunity to review our competitive strategy and explore our options," CEO Chris Beard wrote in a blog post.
"In evaluating our search partnerships, our primary consideration was to ensure our strategy aligned with our values of choice and independence, and positions us to innovate and advance our mission in ways that best serve our users and the Web," Beard said.
"In the end, each of the partnership options available to us had strong, improved economic terms reflecting the significant value that Firefox brings to the ecosystem. But one strategy stood out from the rest."