DOJ Investigating Apple-Google Default Search Engine Deal
Apple’s deal with Google that makes it the default engine on Safari faces uncertainty as the U.S. Department of Justice’s antitrust lawsuit looms, The Information reports.
Google pays Apple upwards of $20 billion per year to retain that default status, something the Justice Department says hinders competition in the search engine industry. Notably, Apple is not named as a party in the lawsuit, but the case has led to testimonies from Apple executives such as Eddy Cue.
It seems to me that that the built-in choices of search engines and the inability for users to add custom ones are much bigger deals than which one is the default.
Previously:
- Google’s AI Search and “Web” View
- Effects of the DMA’s Browser Choice Requirement
- Google Pays to Be Default on Samsung Phones
- Apple’s Q4 2023 Results
- Cue Testimony in US v. Google
- Google Accused of Violating Retention Obligations
- Setting Default Apps in iOS 14
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I guess being in business in the US is now (almost against the law) if two companies make a deal between themselves. People can change their browser or search engine in browsers if they care to look or do. I use https://udm14.com/
Mac revenue was $7.5B last quarter. Let's simplify and say the Mac is worth $30B a year to Apple.
$20B for Google search is from 2022. Given inflation + the rising value to Google, this single deal is possibly now as profitable to Apple as the Mac product line is in a year.
As I understand it, this deal has been in place a while. It's not unreasonable to think Apple's made $100B from it (or is trending there).
Safari deliberately gimps its search engine defaults to a pop-up with "a chosen few". No Brave. No Startpage. No Kagi. I wonder if the "chosen few" also pay Apple significant money to be included there.
Apple is like any Fortune 500: Shareholders > all. So I ask, why stop at search? Why not demonstrate some of that Tim Cook-era *innovation* and auction off *every* user-default? They could double the share price with this one move. In fact, the C-suite should be removed for *not* doing this. Significant shareholder value is being suppressed!
So anyway, they have all this money to keep a single default the same year-over-year, and claim to care and have values, but Swift is still awful and unfun and SwiftUI is worse.
