Mozilla’s open letter to the UK’s Secretary of State for Business and Trade, the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, and the CEO of the CMA
Rt Hon Peter Kyle MP, Department for Science, Innovation and Technology
Rt Hon Jonathan Reynolds MP, Department for Business and Trade
Sarah Cardell, Chief Executive Officer, Competition and Markets Authority
23 July 2025
Dear Secretaries of State and Chief Executive Officer,
At present a small handful of companies dominate our digital lives, limiting our experiences and stifling competition and innovation. Today’s provisional decisions from the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to designate Google and Apple as having “Strategic Market Status” in mobile ecosystems is a crucial step towards changing that: giving people genuine choice online and bringing renewed dynamism to the UK’s digital economy via the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act (DMCCA).
Well-designed regulation like the DMCCA can be a boon to economic growth, lowering the barriers to entry and thus facilitating investment and innovation from both domestic and international companies and developers. We have experienced first hand the impact of ex ante competition regulation: since the obligations of the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) came into force over a year ago Mozilla has seen iOS daily active users in the EU grow by 100% with extremely high rates of retention — evidence that when given real choice, people choose independent products like Firefox and they stick with them. Mozilla also saw a 20% increase in daily Firefox Android users, despite a more inconsistent rollout of browser choice screens.
Why This Matters: When Choice Disappears, Innovation Stalls
Challenging seemingly untouchable giants by offering choice and innovation is in Mozilla’s DNA. When Firefox 1.0 was introduced, it gave people tabbed browsing, pop-up blocking and speed that revolutionised their experiences online — all powered by Mozilla’s browser engine, Gecko.
Recent years have seen major operating systems engage in self-preferencing tactics designed to keep out competition. iOS users could not even change their default browser until 2020. Even then, all iOS browsers are still forced to be built on Apple’s WebKit browser engine. On Android, users are not yet able to reap the full browser choice benefits of the EU DMA, with the selected browser not given full default placement. Meanwhile, Windows users are also regularly faced with deceptive tactics designed to undermine their browser choice.
Such tactics mean people cannot easily choose independent options like Firefox. The lack of competition online leads to people losing out through reduced quality, restricted choice, and worse privacy outcomes.
A Moment for UK Leadership
Despite intense lobbying from the largest technology companies, Parliament acted with cross-party support in 2024 to promote digital competition by passing the DMCCA, recognising that it “stimulates innovation across the economy and helps to drive productivity growth, ultimately raising living standards.”
In the CMA, the UK has an expert regulator with specific market knowledge from investigations into mobile ecosystems and browser competition. It has a track record of unlocking innovation by opening markets, such as with open banking. Other jurisdictions are watching closely and can follow the UK’s successes.
We have already seen the impact the EU DMA can have for consumers. The DMCCA has the potential to be even more effective, giving the UK “second mover advantage” with flexible and targeted interventions. We are also now seeing other countries around the world look to follow the UK’s lead in passing new digital competition laws, while in the US there is a clamour from challenger firms and investors to introduce similar frameworks to level the playing field. As such, this is a chance for the UK to lead, delivering surgical remedies, ensuring real choice for consumers and demonstrating that a level playing field for businesses is possible.
A Shared Responsibility
We cannot simply rely on the goodwill of designated firms to deliver these benefits. The experience from the first year of the DMA suggests they will fight to make the DMCCA fail and use it as an example of why intervention does not work.
Without swift action, operating system providers will continue to entrench their positions and squeeze out alternatives. For UK businesses trying to break into digital markets, interventions must be both timely and effective.
As an organisation that exists to create an internet that is open and accessible to all, Mozilla has long supported competitive digital markets. The DMCCA’s success is a shared responsibility: challenger companies, civil society, academics and researchers are playing their part. We ask that the CMA and the government seize this once-in-a-generation opportunity to deliver choice, competition and economic growth for UK consumers.
Yours sincerely,
Linda Griffin, VP Global Policy
Kush Amlani, Director, Global Competition & Regulation
Mozilla is the non-profit backed technology company that champions privacy, human dignity, and an open internet. Our mission is to ensure the internet is a global public resource, open and accessible to all.