hello ariel, thanks for inquiring this issue. the reasons behind changing the default search provider in firefox are explained in https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/11/19/promoting-choice-and-innovation-on-the-web/

users are of course free as always to set their preferred custom search engine as default choice: Search bar - add, change and manage search engines on Firefox

I think it's just common courtesy to ASK USERS before you make this change. A simple pop-up asking approval to make the change would be sufficient. Or, at a minimum, notify us that you've just changed the default. I just wasted an hour of my time trying to figure out if we had been infected with some kind of malware.

I just turned off automatic search engine updates (see attached) across our entire network to prevent this from happening in the future. Shameful behavior.

Who, and what, is Chris Beard? Not even the courtesy of informing users of his pedigsree?

Exactly why is Yahoo now the default search engine?

Please save us Mozilla users from the overbearing, promotional chatter about how wonderful life will be with Yahoo. What are the specific benefits?. How much money, if any, did Yahoo pay Mozilla and/or Mozilla execs in return for this deal.

And what happened to the relationship with Google? Perhaps we'll find the answers in Yahoo's SEC filings.