You haven't answered the question, they are talking privacy yet taking Googles money to be default search provider. Thats doesn't make any sense.
Let us assume two hypothetical scenarios:
A) With the search engine market share as it is, Apple stopped taking Google’s money and switched the default browser to DuckDuckGo. What would happen?
- Users, analysts, Members of Congress, State Attorneys General, members of the media would all go crazy, maybe even file class action lawsuits.
- Switch their iOS devices to use Google as the default search engine.
This ends with customer dissatisfaction, negative press for Apple and a loss of revenue (both from lost device sales and from Google for default placement).
B) A privacy respecting search engine gets to somewhere between 35% - 50% penetration and is on a growth trajectory. Apple decides to drop Google as it default (maybe taking a smaller payment from the number 2 provider to make them the default).
- Apple runs ads talking about Google search abuses (data gathering, paid placement, favoring their own services, etc.).
- Some users, analysts, Members of Congress, State Attorneys General, members of the media would go crazy (maybe even file class action lawsuit), however, to counter that other users, analysts, Members of Congress, State Attorneys General, etc. would praise their actions.
- Some users would switch their default search engine to Google.
This ends with some short term customer dissatisfaction, but some positive feedback. Some loss in revenue, but not a great deal. Google losing a great deal of revenue. Lots more discussion of privacy by design, privacy by policy and privacy in general.
Explain to me how the first scenario makes any sense for Apple, its users and/or share holders? The net result would be more people in a reduced privacy world.
Cynics would say they care about privacy as long as it doesn't hurt their bottom line.
Rational people would say that they are not in a position to force a change on this issue at this time, and so should do everything they can do to minimize the amount of information Google is able to receive (attacking cross site tracking,
etc.) and to focus users attention to the privacy issue.
Some estimates have put the fee they take from Google a quarter of Apples services revenue. Not so sure they would be so quick to turn that down.
As long as the scenario ends with a large loss of revenue, loss of customer satisfaction and the bulk of users switching their default search engine to Google, they would be stupid to do so. At the point they could do it without those things, I would expect them to do so (it would hurt a rival and improve their message).
