The controversy
The controversy stems from Mr. Eich’s donation in 2008 to a political group that supported California’s ban on same-sex marriages. The donation was discovered in 2012 and caused an outcry which forced Eich to state that his donation was personal and not the policy of Mozilla. Since his appointment as CEO, he has blogged that he will “… demonstrate with meaningful action my commitment to a Mozilla that lives up to its ideals, including that of being an open and inclusive community.”
That is apparently not enough for OkCupid. Additionally, this last weekend the Wall Street Journal reported that John Lilly, Ellen Siminoff and Gary Kovacs have left Mozilla’s board as a result of this controversial appointment.
However, the Mozilla Foundation refuted this in a letter to The Reg where it wrote:
“The three board members ended their terms last week for a variety of reasons. Two had been planning to leave for some time, one since January and one explicitly at the end of the CEO search, regardless of the person selected.”
For those that try to access OkCupid with Firefox, they will be greeted with the following:
The message
“Hello there, Mozilla Firefox user. Pardon this interruption of your OkCupid experience. Mozilla’s new CEO, Brendan Eich, is an opponent of equal rights for gay couples. We would therefore prefer that our users not use Mozilla software to access OkCupid.” The website was also redesigned to provide links to other browsers that the company deems acceptable, meaning all but Firefox.
Internet Explorer, according to web-analytics firm Net Applications, is still the web-browser of choice with a 58% market share. It’s followed by Firefox at 18% and Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG)’s Chrome at 17%.
OkCupid has explained its entrance into politics by stating, “We’ve devoted the last ten years to bringing people—all people—together. If individuals like Mr. Eich had their way, then roughly 8% of the relationships we’ve worked so hard to bring about would be illegal. Equality for gay relationships is personally important to many of us here at OkCupid. But it’s professionally important to the entire company.”
Despite the fact that Firefox enjoys an 18% overall browser share, OkCupid President Christian Rudder recently told the AP that 12% of its 3 billion monthly page views are done with Firefox.
Mozilla chastised OkCupid a bit in a recent email it sent to the Associated Press that blamed OkCupid for “not reaching out to let us know of their intentions, nor to confirm facts,” while reiterating its support for LGBT equality.
