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Google's Dominance in Search Engine Market Solidified by Apple Partnership

It is widely known that Google is paying Apple big bucks to maintain its position as the default search engine for the Safari web browser on iOS and macOS. Before that, in 2021, Google paid $15 billion to establish itself as the default search engine on Apple platforms. Now a new report has revealed how much Google spent in 2022 funding the deal.

News agency Bloomberg reports that Google paid Apple about $20 billion by 2022 to maintain its search engine as the default option in Safari. Through documents in the US. The Department of Justice (DOJ) antitrust lawsuit against Google revealed how much Google paid Apple.

The agreement between Google and Apple is the main focus of lawsuits, as the DOJ believes Google has monopolized online search through its dominant position.

Apple and Google’s partnership began in 2002, but it wasn’t until later that the companies agreed to share revenue from search ads. Previous reports suggest that Microsoft has been trying to talk to Apple to make Bing the default search engine in Safari and even offered to sell Bing to Apple.

According to media, Apple and Google are negotiating which may end up with including Gemini in the iOS 18. In the end, it can be concluded that Apple will be getting some investments from Google. The documents that emerged from the lawsuit which occurred in November indicate that Google has a 36 percent share in the $20 billion of the search revenue they fetch on Safari.

Of particular note, Google has been the search service on Apple devices since 2002 and has renewed the contract rather than let some new vendor take over the deal. Indeed, despite the alleged security operation conducted by both giants during and even before the trial and in the previous years, Google acknowledges paying billions of dollars into Apple's pockets in a year.

Apart from Apple devices, search on Google is preinstalled in many countries by default, nonetheless, users have the opportunity to switch search engines to either Yahoo, Bing, Duckduckgo, Ecosia, etc. To change search engines, you can go to the Safari settings option.

Conclusion: The Google-Apple partnership is right in the middle of the public eye and is still considered an issue with all the changes in terms of digital space. The financial gain is getting by both companies, but some concepts usually pop up such as competition, privacy, and the inevitable question of what it means for the future of the Internet.