In a statement that can potentially spark off a mammoth online debate, Asa Dotzler, director of community development at Mozilla, urged the Firefox users in a December 10 blog post to switch their default search engine to Microsoft’s Bing via an add-on.

In a scenario where the search market battle between Google and Microsoft is escalating, the Mozilla director said that Microsoft’s Bing has a better privacy policy than Internet search giant Google.

While Dotzler’s Bing-inclined statement can be seen as a retaliatory move coming after the Google CEO Eric Schmidt said earlier that Google would have to submit users’ details to authorities if the situation so demanded, Dotzler clarified saying: “Users have a right to privacy online and to understand exactly what they're giving up in exchange for the great services available from companies like Google.”

Dotzler added: “… for several years things have become increasingly out of balance with the service companies gathering more and more data and making it harder for users to understand the implications and exert control and I think it's past time that the pendulum swing back towards user control.”

Meanwhile, Google and Microsoft scuffle is intensifying - with Microsoft adding greater functionality to its comparatively new search engine Bing; search market leader Google gave its search engine a notable boost by adding real-time search results pulled from Facebook, Twitter and MySpace.