Financing
The Mozilla Foundation is funded by donations and "search royalties". Since 2005, the vast majority of funds have come from Google Inc..
Initial funding in 2003 came from AOL, who donated US$2 million, and from Mitch Kapor who donated US$300,000. The group has tax-exempt status under IRC 501(c)(3) of the U.S. tax code, though the Mozilla Corporation subsidiary is taxable.
In 2006, the Mozilla Foundation received US$66.8 million in revenues, of which US$61.5 million is attributed to "search royalties", from Google.
The foundation has an ongoing deal with Google to make Google search the default in the Firefox browser search bar and hence send it search referrals; a Firefox themed Google search site has also been made the default home page of Firefox. The original contract expired in November 2006, however Google renewed the contract until November 2008 and again through 2011. On 20 December 2011 Mozilla announced that the contract was once again renewed for at least three years to November 2014, at 3 times the amount previously paid, or nearly US$300 million annually. Approximately 85% of Mozilla’s revenue for 2006 was derived from this contract.
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