google referral program for firefox

reposted from my sfx post:

Spread Firefox welcomes a new teammate in helping to us spread the word about Firefox -- Google. This morning Google announced a new feature for their Adsense program called AdSense Referrals.

This feature gives AdSense publishers the opportunity to recommend a product they believe would be useful to their site visitors while earning additional revenue at the same time. Publishers get paid for referring new AdSense customers but more importantly (to us,) it allows AdSense publishers to earn revenue by recommending Firefox to their visitors.

Google will be providing a set of buttons for AdSense Referral publishers encouraging viewers to download "Firefox with the Google Toolbar." AdSense Referrals will pay up to $1 per conversion -- a conversion occurs when someone successfully installs Firefox with the Google Toolbar.

We're very excited about this program and hope to see more similar programs available to web publishers in the future. (If you're interested in launching a similar program, please contact partners@mozilla.com.)

Posted by asa on November 4, 2005 1:02 PM

reactions, thoughts, comments, etc.

You mean all those adware - spyware companies? ;) (something like Firefox with Integrated Dialler!)

Posted by: Pooya Karimian | November 4, 2005 2:02 PM

Hmmm... This does sound like it has two faces.. Firefox might just end up like IE if this keeps up...

Posted by: none | November 4, 2005 3:04 PM

Sounds great!

Posted by: Kurt | November 4, 2005 3:57 PM

I dont see any Firefox buttons yet, but I guess it is something that will happen in the future.
Seems like a great idea, and 1$ per conversion is a great incentive to us publishers... I want to start now! lol


One question, I am guessing Google will be "donating" the cost of these ads & conversions, right? Wow, this could be a really big thing. How long will it last? Will we have limits?

Posted by: MTO | November 4, 2005 5:31 PM

Google has been a longtime steadfast ally of the open source community. This is awesome! Let Google and Mozilla take each other to new heights!! :-)

Posted by: yfan | November 4, 2005 10:38 PM

Hmmm... This does sound like it has two faces.. Firefox might just end up like IE if this keeps up...

damn, off to opera I go.

Posted by: d-mag | November 5, 2005 8:29 AM

not that firefox is bad, it's just ideas like these have good intentions but bad results.

Posted by: d-mag | November 5, 2005 8:31 AM

It's not available to all AdSense account owners.
I guess it's not available to site owners outside the USA or with sites that are not in English?
:-(

Posted by: MTO | November 5, 2005 10:30 AM

Yeah. Why can't I get $1 per Firefox download? Me wants...

Posted by: David Naylor | November 5, 2005 2:26 PM

WTF? I though it all used to be about web standards and open source. It seems like now it's all about money and ads.

Posted by: Poop | November 5, 2005 2:33 PM

It would be nice to be paid per Firefox download, but I'm British. Unfair! At least we had fireworks today...

Posted by: Joe Anderson | November 5, 2005 2:41 PM

MTO and Joe, see http://adsense.blogspot.com/2005/11/have-you-heard.htmlhttp://adsense.blogspot.com/2005/11/have-you-heard.html: "In addition, if you are a U.S. publisher, for Firefox with Google Toolbar referrals we will pay up to $1 per referral the first time a user installs Firefox. (We hope to make this available soon to international publishers.)"

Posted by: Jesse Ruderman | November 5, 2005 3:56 PM

If Firefox at some point ends up in the market position that Internet Explorer has been in (although I honestly think that the market will remain more diverse than that), that doesn't mean that the Web will be in the same state. In my opinion, the main problem with Internet Explorer's position was that they had no incentive to develop the browser, and so web developers were stuck developing for a long-outdated browser. The open source development model is different. Money doesn't need to be fronted before any work gets done. Gecko will be developed regardless of whether it's profitable to do so or not. I would be much more worried if Opera reached a 90% market share (although they have shown a greater commitment to standards support than Internet Explorer has).

It's a simple fact that companies will advertise their browsers and attempt to win more of the market. If any browser is to become overwhelmingly dominant, I would hope it'd at least be an open source browser.

As for this particular program, I think it's potentially pretty awesome, but I would like to see better choice of images (like the SpreadFirefox buttons, for instance) and possibly a way to include an ad that doesn't require JavaScript.

Posted by: Nanobot | November 6, 2005 2:37 PM

So howcome international users can use Google AdSense to earn revenue, but can't use the Firefox referral system? What's different?

Posted by: Roger Herbert | November 7, 2005 6:39 AM