Preventing Apple From Creating Its Own Search Engine!

It’s been pretty well-known that Google pays Apple billions per year to remain the default search engine on iPhone and iPad. Now, thanks to the ongoing US vs Google trial, we now know a bit more about this deal.

In 2021, Google paid Apple “around $18 billion” according to a new report out of the New York Times. Over the years, we’ve heard educated guesses of this deal being between $10 billion and $20 billion per year, and it seems like those guesses were pretty much spot on.

But remaining the default search engine isn’t the whole story for this deal. Paying Apple $18 billion per year also kept Apple from building its own search engine. Apple’s head of AI, John Giannandrea, who used to be a Google executive, testified in the trial. Giannandrea stated that Apple had considered everything from buying Bing to building its own search engine. But Apple was ultimately worried about competing with Google and losing this deal. And who could blame them? Apple is making $18 billion a year for doing absolutely nothing but selling more iPhones.

Apple was worried Google would crush Safari

Microsoft’s CEO, Satya Nadella also testified in the trial, and added another reason for Apple to keep this deal in place. And that is, what Google might do if the deal went away. Google has a ton of popular products, across many platforms. And Google could use its mega-popular apps like Gmail, Maps and YouTube to promote Chrome and the Google app. Thus taking them away from Safari.

This would not only crush Safari, but also make any future deal with a search engine, far less valuable. So this deal with Google is mutually beneficial, but it was also a bit of a peace treaty. Apparently the Android team didn’t get that message, as they continue to go after Apple for not adding RCS support.

This deal between Google and Apple has become a centerpiece of the trial so far. The Justice Department has argued that it amounts to an anticompetitive monopoly. This is only helped by the fact that witness after witness has testified that any search engine with access to Apple’s massive market share would immediately become a power player. Hence why Bing and DuckDuckGo really wanted to get this deal with Apple.

Google’s portion of the trial will begin next week, and we expect to see the company’s attorneys spending the next few weeks making their case, and defending this deal with Apple.