Mozilla’s director of community development is not at all happy with Google.  Following an eyebrow-raising comment from CEO Eric Schmidt on the subject of privacy, Asa Dotzler has, in fact, pretty much suggested that everyone use Bing instead.

Here’s what set Dotzler (along with a whole lot of other people) off: on the subject of whether or not folks can trust Google, Schmidt told Maria Bartiromo, "If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place."

Schmidt also said, "We are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act and it is possible that all that information could be made available to the authorities."

That represents a fairly significant departure from the spirit of past statements (and new tools) out of Mountain View.  It may (or may not) indicate that Google’s becoming more likely to turn over users’ search histories upon request.

So Dotzler wrote, "That was Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google, telling you exactly what he thinks about your privacy.  There is no ambiguity, no ‘out of context’ here. . . .  And here’s how you can easily switch Firefox’s search from Google to Bing.  (Yes, Bing does have a better privacy policy than Google.)"

Firefox controls a 24.72 percent share of the browser market, by the way, according to Net Applications.

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