> The minute Mozilla starts being relevant in search, Google will cut their billions USD/year sponsorship, killing Mozilla in the process.
The incentives are not there.
Google needs mozilla more than anyone. It would be a big win for the web if google stopped financing mozilla and had to deal with the consequences.
Why does Google need Mozilla at this point? Firefox has 2.6% market share. Sure, I imagine the cost/benefit ratio is slightly positive for Google, but Mozilla needs Google since that's the majority of their revenue; the reverse is definitely not true.
As likeabatterycar said, it's about avoiding anti trust / monopoly issues. Just imagine mozilla died and google had to cut lose chrome. That would really be interesting.
