It’s no secret that Google pays Apple a lot of money to be the default search engine for the Safari web browser on iOS and macOS. In 2021, the company paid $15 billion to keep Google as the default search engine on Apple platforms. Now a report has just revealed how much Google has spent to keep the deal going in 2022.
Google paid Apple $20 billion in 2022
According to Bloomberg, Google paid Apple around $20 billion in 2022 to keep its search engine as the default in Safari. The amount was revealed through documents in the U.S. Department of Justice’s antitrust lawsuit against Google.
The deal between Google and Apple is one of the main targets of the lawsuit, as the DOJ believes that Google has monopolized online searches with its power.
The deal between the two companies was meant to be secret. Apple executives testified during a trial that Google pays “billions” for it, without specifying a figure. A witness later revealed that Google pays Apple 36% of its online advertising revenue. “The agreement with Apple is the most important of Google’s default deals,” says the report.
The deal between Apple and Google began in 2002, but it took a while before the companies decided to share revenue from search ads. Previous reports have revealed that Microsoft has already tried to negotiate with Apple to make Bing the default search engine in Safari and even sell Bing to Apple.
As Apple is rumored to be in talks with Google to use Gemini in iOS 18, the Cupertino-based company may soon fork over even more cash from Google.
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