When Apple demoed its iPhone in 2007, the default search engine for its web browser, Safari, was Yahoo!, not Google.
But Google quickly came onto the scene to change that. Its message to Apple? Don’t let any of our rivals become Safari’s default homepage, or else. The tech giant would only share its ad revenue — a very sizable share (36%), at that — with Apple if it agreed to make Google search the only search engine default on every single version of Safari, the United States Department of Justice said in its closing arguments against Google last week.
The DOJ sued Google in 2020 for allegedly creating a monopoly in the search market. A decision in the multi-year legal battle is expected in late summer or early fall.
Google has contended that consumers still have plenty of choices for search engines, and that they choose Google search because it’s helpful.
From the DOJ’s perspective, however, it appears that iPhone users don’t have much of a choice. While Apple has pushed back against Google and attempted to explore partnerships with other search engines such as DuckDuckGo, its agreement with Google has effectively barred relationships with Google competitors.
Google has similarly strict agreements with other device makers and web browsers such as Samsung and Mozilla. The company reportedly paid Apple $20 billion in 2022 as part of its contract.
“They [Google’s agreements with web browsers and device makers to be the default search engine] basically freeze the ecosystem in place…” said Snowflake CEO Sridhar Ramaswamy to the DOJ.
The result has been that Google has a 90% share of the search market, according to the DOJ, while Bing has just 5.5% and Yahoo! has about 2%.
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Google has a 90% share of the search market, DOJ says
Google paid Apple $20 billion to be Safari’s default search engine
