Google Paid Apple $1 Billion in 2014 to be Default iOS Search Engine

[furi0usbee]

Should Apple ever opt out of renewing this deal, I would be willing to negotiate similar fees to make Google my default search engine.

Yeah, I wonder how many active iPhone users there are (not just phones sold) and of those, how many are using google. I'd like to know what that comes to per person.

And to your point, yeah, if Google paid me $50.00/year I'd make them my default search (although it already is).

EDIT: And yeah, maybe that IS the future. Rather than us paying to use products and companies getting the money, we actually start getting paid to use the stuff and help make the companies money in the process. Just think of all the stuff we do for free, like wear shirts, shoes, hats with logos on them. We pay to advertise for these companies. I think we need to reverse this ASAP!

I'll wear only Levi's for $100/year, only Nike for $50/year, etc.... We are walking billboards and let them have it for FREE!!!!!!!! Come on guys, join me!

 

[Zaft]

Not surprising given that vast majority of people dont even know how to change the default or care to.

Google search is just search, just like any paper towel is bounty, just like any tablet is called an iPad, just like any tissue is called Kleenex. They are THE brand no matter how many other brands there are.

They set the standard.

 

[Chupa Chupa]

The problem is that the average user will listen to TC and believe by using the iPhone thier data is private, while behind the scenes Apple has taken money from Google , and Google is tracking these iPhone users.

There is hypocrisy here, $1 billion is very little to Apple if they were truly serious about the privacy of thier users.

While all these companies pretend to be competitors for the cameras , behind the scenes money talks, and they work quite well together.

But iPhone's user is private until they disclose it per TC's edict. Google isn't an Apple product. When one types in a search request on Safari, be it on the search bar or directly at Google.com the user is voluntarily disclosing information whether they understand that or not. All TC has pledged is that Apple won't data mine it's own products, not that it would ban any company from it's walled garden that did data mine. If it did that then Safari wouldn't be able to reach many web sites because they almost all require, at the least, a cookie these days.

I'm not a huge TC fan as demonstrated in many MR posts but I am a fan of truth and TC has never made a blanket claim that using Apple products guarantees 100% privacy, especially when the user actively discloses the information or allows a company to track them. He has only said Apple isn't in the data mining business; won't disclose private information it has without a warrant; will build the OS with strong encryption and won't keep keys to unlock it. That has zero to do with someone doing a search on Google.

 

[69Mustang]

Apparently not as much as one would think...according to this report, they only made 31 billion total for life of Android. That's less than a single quarter's revenue of iPhone sales!

http://www.theverge.com/2016/1/21/10810834/android-generated-31-billion-revenue-google-oracle

That's not how math works. Or logic. You can't take an unrelated report about what Google made on Android and somehow extrapolate they didn't make as much as one would think on iOS. There are no dots that can be connected in that scenario.

There are two sureties: 1. Google made money from iOS users. 2. Apple made money, through Google, on those same iOS users. There's nothing bad about either of those things. It's companies doing business.

 

[MH01]

But iPhone's user is private until they disclose it per TC's edict. Google isn't an Apple product. When one types in a search request on Safari, be it on the search bar or directly at Google.com the user is voluntarily disclosing information whether they understand that or not. All TC has pledged is that Apple won't data mine it's own products, not that it would ban any company from it's walled garden that did data mine. If it did that then Safari wouldn't be able to reach many web sites because they almost all require, at the least, a cookie these days.

I'm not a huge TC fan as demonstrated in many MR posts but I am a fan of truth and TC has never made a blanket claim that using Apple products guarantees 100% privacy, especially when the user actively discloses the information or allows a company to track them. He has only said Apple isn't in the data mining business; won't disclose private information it has without a warrant; will build the OS with strong encryption and won't keep keys to unlock it. That has zero to do with someone doing a search on Google.

I agree with that. That's the way it is, just saying that users have a misconception that owning an iPhone results in their data being private, including using search.... Which a lot of the iPhone functionality is based around.

I bet most would not even know Google is the default search engine .

 

[Tinmania]

And then there is this:

Just Bing it! (Uhhh? Kinda weird.)
Just Yahoo it! (The 90's called!)
Just DuckDuckGo it! (Worst name ever!)

and the winner is...

JUST GOOGLE IT!



Mike

 

[Max(IT)]

Companies would have bid for that default spot because it's valuable. The majority of people don't fiddle with that default setting. Apple didn't default to DuckDuckGo. They default to Google because Google gave them money. Businesses run on money. Apple can act as if they're different all they want, but this really shows they count the money before they think about their morals. Time to assume Apple does not have our best interests at heart.

Wow you made my day! You just discovered Apple isn't a charity institution but a business company.
Apple cares about profits and profits come through customers ' satisfaction.
So YES Apple is different from Google (Google profits come through selling customers data).

And even if the site doesn't have Google ads on it, it most probably uses Google Analytics in which case you're being tracked anyway.

Nice to see how people realize Google basically is the Big Brother of the net...

How people could trust such a company is totally beyond my comprehension

 

[vkd]

Both Google and Apple attempted to have the court records blocked from public review because the information is "extremely confidential,"

Both companies are fully transparent and trustworthy then? (My foot.)

 

[MH01]

Nice to see how people realize Google basically is the Big Brother of the net...

How people could trust such a company is totally beyond my comprehension

Ummm max, by posting in Mac rumours you are being tracked by Google advertising(double click) and google analytics ....

 

[ActionableMango]

I could see Apple buying DuckDuckGo but I have used it a few time and the search results really suck.

I agree it sucks, but I keep testing it every few months or so and I will also say that it is getting better and better over time. I could see it becoming good enough in another year or so.

 

[69Mustang]

So YES Apple is different from Google (Google profits come through selling customers data).


Nice to see how people realize Google basically is the Big Brother of the net...

How people could trust such a company is totally beyond my comprehension

It's one thing to dislike Google. It's something completely different when you just make up stuff that you know isn't true. You know they don't sell customers data. Your posts may be biased against Google, but you've never denied that. Your posts also reveal you have more than just an average understanding of tech. I personally don't see anything wrong with your bias, but it shouldn't make you shade the truth to further a narrative.

It's pretty ironic you question trustworthiness when you know what you claimed in the post above isn't true.

 

[iReinventnv]

So I guess this means Apple carted us all off for a billion dollars. Just another corporation.

 

[OldSchoolMacGuy]

Agreed.

And how many people actually know that they can, in fact, change the search engine in their settings? Or would even bother, or want to? Not many, I'd wager.

Hell, most probably don't even realize they're 'defaulting' to Google, since searching with Google is as natural as waking up everyday. And Google is willing to pay big money for that.

That's exactly why it's worth it to Google to pay to keep themselves as the main search engine. If it switched to Yahoo instead, how many do you think would actually go and change it to Google instead? I'm willing to bet that the majority of people would just leave it as is. Sure, those here would go change it (people that go online to talk about technology on a forum aren't the typical consumer), but the vast majority, the average consumer, a) doesn't know they can change it and b) doesn't care. They just want their search results and it doesn't matter who finds them the page they want as long as someone finds them the page.

 

[Shlooky]

Can Google pay me $1 Billion for using their Google apps?

 

[Hephaestus]

I'd rather use DuckDuckGo anyway, fu ck Google. A company full of pretentious WANKERS. Same as Apple, making the world better? FU CK YOU

 

[kdarling]

I'm not a huge TC fan as demonstrated in many MR posts but I am a fan of truth and TC has never made a blanket claim that using Apple products guarantees 100% privacy, especially when the user actively discloses the information or allows a company to track them.

He has only said Apple isn't in the data mining business;

If he said that, he was being disingenuous, thinking he could later claim that he meant not as a primary function. Because Apple is absolutely involved in data mining.

That's what iAds are about... using private info Apple has collected, to sell us as a product to advertisers, just like Google.

The only difference is that apparently Apple is not very good at the ad business and/or iOS users don't click on ads enough to make it worth the extra money Apple wants for access to its users.

won't disclose private information it has without a warrant; will build the OS with strong encryption and won't keep keys to unlock it. That has zero to do with someone doing a search on Google.

That's true, people keep confusing Apple's claims of privacy with claims of their customers not being a product. They're two different things. Apple means privacy from prying by the government. (They do NOT mean privacy from Google or the banks, however.)

--
As for the Google deal, if Apple didn't charge Google for access to us, or didn't take a cut of their revenues, then Apple could claim we're not a product. Even better, if Apple PAID Google to provide services to Apple customers in return for Google not collecting data, then Apple could claim we're not a product.

But Apple is not just an innocent bystander, allowing Google apps to be loaded. Instead, Apple has for years made a deal to share in the profits from Google ads, while making Google the default and allowing Google to continue to freely collect search data.

Nothing wrong with that, of course. It's just business. What's wrong, is Tim Cook trying to distract people from Apple's greed, by pointing at others and hoping nobody notices Apple is profiting from those "free" internet services as well.

 

[Orange Computer]

It's not that weird. They already have a search engine, just not in a traditional sense. Apple's spotlight and Siri are getting more powerful every year, and with in app searches, traditional search engines are becoming less relevant by the day.

Those are powered by Bing and a couple of other providers depending on context.

 

[Mr. Retrofire]

It's quite amazing indeed...

I doubt that the $1 Billion is tax-free.

 

[Orange Computer]

Can Google pay me $1 Billion for using their Google apps?

Microsoft will pay you $0.01/search if you switch to Bing.

 

[Stewie]

Ummm max, by posting in Mac rumours you are being tracked by Google advertising(double click) and google analytics ....

Which is why, at least on my laptop where I do most of my macrumors browsing, I run ghostery, to block google adsense, google tag manager and 10 other trackers it is blocking. So google isn't getting anything from me.
[doublepost=1453494218][/doublepost]

Such a first world problem. Are you truly inconvenienced each and every year that you have to buy a new phone and redownload some apps?

Doens't even have to do that as that what iclould/itunes backups are for.

 

[joueboy]

Although we want to think that Apple got the last laugh of this deal because of the 1billion figure. We forgot that's a Google investment just like any companies buying machineries. That means for every investment there is a return or profit. Which I think they made way more that than what they paid Apple. If you're an investor or have a stock from Apple you're probably smiling right now. But if you're just a normal person like me then it may not sound good. That means Apple just sold us to Google. So who's laughing now?

 

[Jimmy James]

I switched to Bing when I first switched to Safari. I didn't realize there were so many dollars in play.

 

[Stewie]

Although we want to think that Apple got the last laugh of this deal because of the 1billion figure. We forgot that's a Google investment just like any companies buying machineries. That means for every investment there is a return or profit. Which I think they made way more that than what they paid Apple. If you're an investor or have a stock from Apple you're probably smiling right now. But if you're just a normal person like me then it may not sound good. That means Apple just sold us to Google. So who's laughing now?

Thus is why you should make it your mission to get people to change the default search engine to something other than Google, I prefer duckduckgo myself. Than Google return on investment will be much smaller and in my fantasy world they would actually lose money on the deal.

 

[AppleScruff1]

Wow you made my day! You just discovered Apple isn't a charity institution but a business company.
Apple cares about profits and profits come through customers ' satisfaction.
So YES Apple is different from Google (Google profits come through selling customers data).


Nice to see how people realize Google basically is the Big Brother of the net...

How people could trust such a company is totally beyond my comprehension

How people can trust Apple who sold out to Google for the almighty dollar and think Apple cares about customer privacy is beyond my comprehension.

 

[Max(IT)]

Ummm max, by posting in Mac rumours you are being tracked by Google advertising(double click) and google analytics ....

Well, hardly on my Mac...

It's one thing to dislike Google. It's something completely different when you just make up stuff that you know isn't true. You know they don't sell customers data. Your posts may be biased against Google, but you've never denied that. Your posts also reveal you have more than just an average understanding of tech. I personally don't see anything wrong with your bias, but it shouldn't make you shade the truth to further a narrative.

It's pretty ironic you question trustworthiness when you know what you claimed in the post above isn't true.

You know what I mean.
Google is the less ethical company on the planet.
The web is literally ruined by Google.
They track everything they can. They don't care about ANY customer, Apple's , Microsoft's or their own customers base... The whole android ecosystem is their crop.
They are not just a company to dislike. They are a company to be fought.

Apple, as Microsoft, aren't charity institutions, for sure. But they actually sell products, hardware or software (or a combination of both, especially Apple).
Google gives baits...

How people can trust Apple who sold out to Google for the almighty dollar and think Apple cares about customer privacy is beyond my comprehension.

Apple sold an option, nothing more.
Apple aren't mining their devices. Apple do care about customer privacy.
They are offering multiple search engines to their customers, and they sold the option to be the default to Google.
The problem is what Google is doing behind their search engine...