It was supposed to remain confidential, but now we know that Apple gets 36% of Google's search revenues!
According to Bloomberg, Google pays Apple 36 percent of all advertising revenue generated through Apple's Safari browser, so it remains the default search engine in Safari.
Google pays Apple Inc. 36% of the revenue, it earns from search advertising made through the Safari browser, the main economics expert for the Alphabet Inc. unit said. Kevin Murphy, a University of Chicago professor, revealed the number during his testimony in Google's defense at the Justice Department's antitrust trial in Washington.
The remarkable thing about the percentage revelation is that the figure was meant to be confidential, and therefore caused Google's chief lawyer, John Schmidtlein (Williams & Connolly LLP), to "visibly cringe" when Murphy revealed it. As Bloomberg states, The Justice Department believes that such agreements are evidence that Google illegally dominates the search engine and search advertising markets. Apple has not responded to questions from Bloomberg, while Google declined to comment on the revelation this evening.
The companies have maintained a partnership that designates Google as the default search engine in Apple's Safari since 2002. Presently, this agreement holds significant importance among Google's default deals, as it establishes the search engine for the iPhone, the most widely used smartphone in the US.
"We make Google be the default search engine because we've always thought it was the best. We pick the best one and let users easily change it", said Eddy Cue, Apple's head of service. Although Google is the default search engine on Apple devices, users can decide to switch to Bing, DuckDuckGo, or other popular search engines as an alternative, but to do so they'll need to access the Safari browser settings to change the default preferences.
If Google loses the antitrust case, and it may, the agreement between Apple and Google could be dissolved. Apple could be pushed to allow customers to choose a search engine option during initial configuration, rather than making Google the default. Losing billions of dollars to Google could push Apple to develop its search engine, and the company has already considered creating such a solution, according to Apple's AI chief, John Giannandrea, who leads a team within Apple that has been developing a next-generation search engine for Apple applications.
Should the Google/Apple deal be approved, it might be years before any noticeable alterations occur. The resolution of this case is not imminent, and once it is reached, a protracted appeals process is anticipated