According to a report by the Financial Times, a Google executive recently revealed that the company paid $26.3 billion to its partners in 2021 to make Google the default search engine for most smartphones and browsers. In this payment, Apple received $18 billion. This is the first time Google has publicly disclosed the specific amount spent to maintain its leading position in the search industry.
According to the technology media The Verge, as early as 2018, Google CEO Sundar Pichai proposed to Apple CEO Tim Cook to pre install Google Search on the iPhone, but Cook ultimately did not accept this proposal.
According to reports, Apple and Google have long had a search engine agreement, with Google paying $1.8 billion to $20 billion annually as the default search engine on Apple devices. After Cook expressed his hope that Apple and Google would become "deep partners," Pichai said that pre installed Google Search would bring more traffic to Google, which in turn would bring more revenue to Apple. (According to Mark Gurman of Bloomberg, Apple receives approximately $8 billion annually from Google's search advertising revenue.)
Pichai suggested that Cook consider allowing Google to design an application or provide some solutions that can provide a native experience for the iPhone.
However, Pichai's idea was not adopted. Analysts say that although the iPhone comes pre installed with many self-developed applications, it has never pre installed third-party applications, which may be one of the reasons why the company does not accept Pichai's suggestion.
The US Department of Justice believes that Google's monopoly in the search field makes it the "gatekeeper of the internet". The institution is filing a lawsuit against some "exclusive agreements" between Google and Apple.
Currently, Google holds over 90% of the search engine market share. Moreover, Google is the default search engine on all Apple devices. Although users can make changes, many people do not do so.
In September of this year, during the trial, Apple's service director Eddy Cue testified that choosing Google as the default search engine was because Apple had always believed that Google was the best and had not found an effective replacement product.
But it is worth mentioning that many search service companies have negotiated cooperation with Apple.
Recently, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella stated that he has always wanted Bing to replace Google as the default search engine on Apple devices and is willing to pay nearly $15 billion annually for this, plus additional fees.
In 2020, Microsoft even discussed selling Bing Search to Apple. Microsoft executives met with Eddie Kuyt to discuss the possibility of an acquisition. But these attempts were unsuccessful.
In addition, Gabriel Weinberg, CEO of search engine DuckDuckGo, stated that the company had approached Apple for a partnership, but it fell through. "The contract signed between Apple and Google is a key factor hindering the transaction.
Google's monopoly position has raised concerns among US government agencies. According to Bloomberg, in April this year, the US Department of Justice stated at a hearing that if Google had not monopolized the search engine market, technological innovations such as generative AI might have been introduced a few years ago.
Google's representative lawyer, John Schmidtlein, argues that reaching default search engine agreements with companies such as Apple does give Google a certain "advantage", but this advantage is not something that competitors cannot surpass. When Google and Apple first reached a partnership in 2003 to become the default search engine for Safari browser, Google was just one of many search companies, and at that time, the market share of Mac computers was very small.
However, Kenneth Dintzer, the chief lawyer for antitrust cases at the US Department of Justice, advocates that after Google gains a market monopoly, the exclusivity clause in the contract should be lifted to allow competitors to enter the smartphone and browser markets, providing users with more options.
Dingzel cited Microsoft's announcement of the integration of OpenAI's generative AI technology into Bing as an example. Shortly after that, Google announced that it was about to launch its own chat robot Bard, "which shows how the real competition will do