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Google Paid Apple $20 Billion in 2022 to Be Default Safari Search Engine
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Obviously. This isn't the only payment that has been made since Google has paid to be the default (which has been since the start). They typically pay every few years. This is just the most recent payment made and the biggest amount of $$$$$ reported so far. Therefore its news. Shocking!
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20 billion to be the default option that people would have manually switched to anyway if it wasn't the default.
I know Google is rich, but that's just a waste.
I know Google is rich, but that's just a waste.
It's not a question of money for Apple.
It's a question of integrating the best search engine into the core Apple experience, which turns out to be Google, and even more awesome Google are willing to pay Apple $20bn for the privilege of being default search.
It's a question of integrating the best search engine into the core Apple experience, which turns out to be Google, and even more awesome Google are willing to pay Apple $20bn for the privilege of being default search.
Completely agree, if Apple switched to Yahoo or Duck Duck go the majority at this point would just switch it back, people are addicted to Google and don't like to search anywhere else, it actually usually causes a physical response when I get people to try to search a different engine, and they will typically say the results arent relevant even before searching/give up not want to even try the search if they cant use google. It really is not a good spend for Google, they have humanity by the balls. On the flip side it's definitely great passive income for Apple.
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Try Brave Search, I tried all the others that you can select for in Safari and they just weren’t giving me the results I wanted. There’s workarounds to make it work with Safari and Spotlight.
Apple: "Keep those fines and settlement payments coming, Google's paying!"
It really is as simple as that. Both companies benefit.
Lets not lie to ourselves here. Google isn't paying $20,000,000,000.00 a year for nothing. Apple markets itself as a privacy focused company because that works for them right now. As a publicly traded company they absolutely must grow or their stock price collapses. Unlike their competitors they have only one product that make them money and with phone sales stagnating, Apple car abandoned and the Vision Pro not getting any real traction where do they go? Services are what they talk about but I don't think Apple TV+ or Apple Music are the real services generator. I think its iCloud making the real money. Apple gives almost no free storage so once your photos are full you are almost forced to pay. Pay attention when Apple changed the default camera resolution from 12mp to 24mp. This wasn't a quality decision, this was a way to fill up your iCloud drive faster to generate that sweet sweet cash. While iCloud is a separate division and part of services it is still just an extension of the iPhone meaning without iPhone there is no Apple services revenue.
Lets do the math here. We have a company with investors that demand growth selling a product that has sales slowing worldwide. If Tim Cook can't make Apple grow then eventually he'll be replaced. If Apple is taking Googles money then they are already monetizing customer data. How long do you think it will take before he or his successor decides to go all in especially with government intervention stopping Apples ability to lock people in?
Closed systems and closed source software are liabilities for end users once the greed switch gets flipped.
Guys if Google is paying $20 billion just to be the default (not only) search engine on Safari browser, you have to think what they are getting out of you. Its not free to use.
I seriously honestly though Escalator, Jet Ski and Jacuzzi are the name of the invention.
"Browser engine" is an entirely different term that does not mean the same thing as "default search engine in a browser." You cannot change the browser engine of Safari, it's always WebKit.
I guess the author of this article, Juli, doesn't know how web browsers work.
Paid them $20 billion.
Meanwhile, I changed the search engine from it like the first thing I do after getting a new iPhone.
Meanwhile, I changed the search engine from it like the first thing I do after getting a new iPhone.
I see similarities to Apple discussing with OpenAI and Gemini for their LLMs on iOS18. The talk has been Apple being behind in the AI game and paying to outsource but I suspect Apple is really taking bids for the rights to be default cloud AI service for iOS.
…is a human right.
LOL. And worst part if that most people here blindly believe anything Apple says.
No, they wouldn't. Google obviously doesn't think so either - they wouldn't pay Apple $20 billion a year otherwise.
Google knows most people never change anything away from the default settings.
A simple solution to this is that once you are a search engine of a specific size (market share) you can no longer participate in any auction to be set as default. That way Apple can still auction and sell a default in Safari, but Google can’t compete.
To get a grasp on what is going on, one place to start is the classic documentary, Century of the Self:
If search is worth 20 billion with heavy tracking and ads, maybe it could be worth 10 million to apple with no tracking and old fashioned dumb ads. Apple could buy DDG, rename it something sensible, improve the search results, and set that as the default search engine.
Did this search yesterday. The only thing anti-competitive is how poor Bing is compared to Google. Apple is just getting 20 'B's for free.
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