Google is the default search engine on many devices, on more than many browsers. And that happens for two reasons.
First, there is practically no search engine as big and as powerful as Google Search, and that Alphabet Inc. is paying big money to become the default on those many devices and browsers.
Apple has Safari, the browser unique only to its own ecosystem. While it's no comparison to Google Chrome in terms of number of users, all Apple users default to Safari. In order to become the default search engine on Safari, Google pays Apple billions of dollars per year.
An extremely aggressively move is to maintain its ubiquitous presence.
This time, in an antitrust trial, Microsoft shed a bit of light into the matter.
While the strategy Google uses to keep its default position is no longer a secret, there is more where that came from.
According to Mikhail Parakhin, the head of Microsoft’s advertising and web services, testified that Bing search engine benefits Apple financially more than it ever benefits Microsoft.
"Apple is making more money on Bing existing than Bing does," Parakhin said during the U.S. government’s antitrust trial against Google in Washington.
Parakhin added that Microsoft is always trying to convince Apple to default to Bing search over Google Search, but nothing came out of it.
Apple defaulted to Bing for Siri image searches at one time, but Bing has never been the default search engine for Safari.
"We are always trying to convince Apple to use our search engine," said Parakhin.
Microsoft’s argument is that, Apple is able to leverage Bing, and make it its default search engine when its contract with Google expires.
"It would be “game changing" for Microsoft if Bing became the default search engine on iPhones, Parakhin said. "We are worse on mobile because we don’t have traffic."
But Alphabet seems to always defend its Google contract.
Apple never seriously considered switching to Bing.
Mikhail Parakhin complained that when it came to the search engine war with Alphabet's Google, the company’s Bing was never more than a bargaining chip to Apple.
Because Microsoft said that it cannot afford to invest in Bing without assurances that it could reach a significant number of users, and that Apple seemingly used whatever price Microsoft offered it, and make Alphabet best it.
Parakhin said it was “uneconomical for Microsoft to invest more” in technology for the mobile search market. “Unless Microsoft gets a more significant, or firmer guarantee of distribution, it makes it uneconomical to invest.”
Parakhin, who joined Microsoft in 2019 from Russian search engine Yandex, said Microsoft met with Apple as recently as 2021 to discuss a potential switch to Bing, but didn’t make any progress.
Apple has used Google as the default search engine in its Safari browser since 2003, in exchange for a share of the advertising revenue earned through searches made on its devices.
According to the accusation, Apple continues to defend Google because it leads to greater revenue.
For Apple, retaining Google as the default search leads to greater revenue sharing, which the DOJ suspects unfairly incentivizes Apple to lock users into Google's search engine.
Due to the profit sharing deal, the more money Google generates from searches on iPhones, the more Apple makes. If ever Apple send less traffic to Google, the less Apple will earn. The allegation here is that, even if Microsoft offered a better deal, Apple still wouldn't get as much revenue per search and would be unlikely to switch defaults to Bing.
The exact amount of money Apple earns from the Google deal is confidential, but the U.S. Justice Department said it’s between $4 billion and $7 billion a year.
The Justice Department alleged that the contract and others like it have allowed Google to illegally maintain its monopoly over the online search market.
In response to this, Apple’s Eddy Cue said Apple picked Google because it is the superior product.
"I didn’t think at the time, or today, that there was anybody out there who is anywhere near as good as Google at searching," Cue told the court. "Certainly there wasn’t a valid alternative."
The top Apple executive testified that the iPhone-maker agreed to "support and defend" the contract with Google in any regulatory challenges including the Justice Department’s lawsuit.
And as for Google, the company denies the government’s claim and said that users are free to choose whatever search engine they want to use, bot chose its search engine because it is the best one.
The company also seemingly deny paying Apple huge money to prevent it form creating its own search engine.
Apple also seemingly deny the allegation.
Cue, who oversees Apple's main services and has a reputation for closing complex deals, testified that Apple and Google benefited from the deal, with Apple providing "great customers" to Google and Google providing an "amazing" search engine for Apple users.
“It was in Google’s best interest and our best interest to get the deal done,” Cue told the court
The U.S. Justice Department accused Google of illegally locking in its monopoly through deals to make its search option the default on Apple, Samsung, Firefox and other platforms.
Those partnerships literally squashed competitors that struggled to get their products in front of consumers, the U.S. Justice Department argues.
And here, the U.S. Justice Department and dozens of states have brought the lawsuit to argue that Google used the default deals as a "powerful strategic weapon" to block competitors and lock in its dominance in the search market.
In what's called the U.S. Versus Google lawsuit, the nation is dealing with a deal that is considered the most significant.
And deal between Google and Apple, which is the largest of them all, has been commencing for two decades.
The benefit between the two companies is mutual, and monopolistic, to say the least.
The lawsuit is part of a crackdown on big tech by regulators appointed by U.S. President Joe Biden.
Read: Google Dominates The Market Because 'Switching Is Way Harder Than It Needs To Be'