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Comment by angrygoat | Hacker News Reader

Apparently this caught Verizon by surprise:

> "Yahoo and Mozilla have enjoyed a productive relationship together since 2014," said Charles Stewart, a spokesman for Verizon’s digital advertising business, Oath. "We are surprised that Mozilla has decided to take another path and we are in discussions with them regarding the terms of our agreement."

(Source: https://washpost.bloomberg.com/Story?docId=1376-OZF67R6VDKHT...)

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That sounds a lot like "we are going to try not to pay".

Never mind "try not to pay", that's table stakes. Likelier than not, they'll seek some form of reparation.

Sounds like having to pay even if Mozilla terminated it was built in.

Wow. Whoever managed to get that clause in there must be pretty happy right now.

Or maybe Mozilla doesn't want to send search queries and user info to Verizon for analytics. Plus there might be a trust issue with search results.

That's not an "or". According to the article, Mozilla is very likely still entitled to payment after terminating. The statement from Yahoo in the grandparent comment makes it sound like Verizon didn't quite realise this possibility and are looking to avoid it.

Just because the official line is "we are surprised" doesn't mean they're actually surprised. This came from a spokesman.

My first thought about this was that Verizon was pushing for some additional tracking requirements with which Mozilla was not comfortable. Google may be a little more flexible in that regards. Or maybe Mozillians just don't like Verizon.

They've been fighting them over e.g. net neutrality for quite a while, so it makes sense they don't want to be associated with them.

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