Mozilla has to generate enough revenue to continue developing their products somehow. It would be nice if donations were enough to cover those development costs but that simply isn’t the case. Because of this the ad networks are a necessary “evil”.
The setting from the original post is for sites in general, it’s not specifically about Mozilla sites. I’m not sure how having this option relates to their revenue, unless Google put it in their search contract with them?
Edit: Wait, I see people mentioning Mozilla acquired an ad company?
Supporting ad networks is not a ‘necessary’ evil. There are many not-for-profit organisations that do not use ads for revenue raising.
What would you suggest then? They’ve been unable to sustain themselves via donations alone.
When writing my previous post I had started writing a list of suggested strategies; but I changed my mind about posting that. I’m not a member of Mozilla. I don’t know what particular challenges they face, and my expertise are not in not-for-profit fundraising. So although I do have ideas, I don’t really want to get into a trap of trying to defend my half-arse ideas against people picking them apart. It’s beside the point. The point is just that it is achievable, as evidenced by other organisations achieving it.
I will say though that they could at least just mention on the Firefox ‘successful update’ page that Firefox is supported by donations, and give a link. A lot of people really like Firefox; and I think that if Firefox asked for donations, they would get more donations.
