Google Paid Apple $20 Billion to be Default Safari Search Engine in 2022

Newly revealed court documents show that Google paid Apple $20 billion USD (around $27.4 billion CAD) to secure its position as the default search engine for Safari across iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

Documents first seen by Bloomberg stemmed from an antitrust dispute between Google and the United States Department of Justice. The tech giant is currently in the midst of a legal battle in which it’s accused of having an illegal monopoly over internet searches. Google’s deal with Apple has been under the microscope throughout the proceedings.

Google has long been the default search engine on Apple’s devices, dating back to as early as 2002. Over the years, Google and Apple have renegotiated the terms. However, both companies did their best to keep the terms of the agreement under wraps. That is, until this trial.

Last year, as the legal disputes began, it was reported that Google paid Apple a chunk of its revenue that’s earned from search advertising via Safari. Kevin Murphy, the main economics expert for Alphabet Inc.’s Google, testified and stated that that figure was 36 percent. Now, we have a tangible monetary figure and it turns out that Google had paid Apple upwards of $20 billion USD.

The documents continued to outline how much Google’s payments in revenue are important to Apple’s profits. In 2020, Google’s 36 percent attributed to 17.5 percent of Apple’s total operating income for the year. This makes its partnership with Google one of Apple’s most important. In Canada and the U.S., Google is largely considered the most popular search engine.

On Apple’s devices, users have the option to change search engines. By going into the Safari settings on iPhone, iPad, etc., users can choose Microsoft’s Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, or Ecosia.

Closing arguments on Google’s antitrust lawsuit are expected to begin today and conclude on Friday, May 3rd. The judge’s ruling will then be set later in the year. If Google ends up losing the lawsuit, it may end up having an impact on Apple and its users.