All Eyes on Apple as Google Search Deal Expires Next Year

Marissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo, with colleagues earlier this year. Photo by Max Morse.

Mozilla’s decision last week to replace Google with Yahoo as the default search engine for the Firefox browser in the U.S. was a nice little score for Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer.

But among companies still wringing billions of dollars a year from search ads, all eyes are on the upcoming expiration of the only search distribution deal that matters anymore: Apple’s Safari Web browser.