Not just advertising: Mozilla could not have put a “better in Firefox” button on Gmail or YouTube at any price, or forced Google to follow through on their promise around H.264, etc.
Google also tried to push PC OEMs to pre-install Chrome on their new PCs when Chrome was new.[1] Sony/VAIO is the only manufacturer to have known to take the bait.[2]
Specifically, Google was leveraging their existence as "THE web" to push their web browser. Every single Google property aggressively displayed banners and reminders and nag prompts ensuring you "Gmail is best in Chrome" and other nonsense that "Just one click here to fix".
Yes, putting a single button with vague words in front of users almost always gets a lot of clicks, which we've known for decades, and it turns out, if you have the attention of nearly the entire web-browsing world, you can put that button in front of people's faces way more than your competitors. It should have been considered billions of dollars of free advertising for Chrome that should have been assessed against them somehow.
It's blatantly unfair and should have been shut down in literally days, but nooooooooo we aren't allowed to have regulation here in the states.
