DOJ lawsuit against Google alleges Google illegally monopolizes search engines and advertising markets
Parent company Alphabet paid iPhone $20 billion in 2022 to make its search engine the «default search engine& in the Safari browser. The disclosure, made by Apple's Senior Vice President of Services Eddie Cue, was the first official confirmation of the exact amount Google paid for its search engine dominance on the iPhone.
The New York Times previously reported that Google paid Apple «about $18 billion in 2021 to maintain its status as "the default search engine" on the manufacturer's devices. But Google's relationship with Apple, which is at the center of the litigation, has been particularly complicated. Documents show that in 2020, Google's payments amounted to 17.5% of Apple's operating profits — a significant portion of the tech giant's cash flow.
The Department of Justice and several US states filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google in 2020, accusing the company of illegally monopolying the search engine and advertising markets, primarily through multibillion-dollar deals with companies like Apple and others. Google says people use its search engine because it is a useful product.
The disclosed documents also show that Apple has put forward several potentially lucrative proposals for a «desired slot in the default queue» for your browser. Thus, Microsoft offered Apple 90% of its advertising revenue in 2020 to make its Bing search engine the «standard» for Safari.
Google had nearly 92% of the search engine market share as of February, according to Oberlo. Its share hasn't fallen below 90% since 2014, and it has been the most popular search engine for the better part of two decades.