Google paying hefty price to keep search engine default on Safari

[Hanno Labuschagne]

Google paying hefty price to keep search engine default on Safari

Alphabet Inc. paid Apple Inc. $20 billion in 2022 (R327.48 billion at that year's average exchange rate) for Google to be the default search engine in the Safari browser, according to newly unsealed court documents in the Justice Department’s antitrust lawsuit against Google.

The deal between the two tech giants is at the heart of the landmark case, in which antitrust enforcers allege Google has illegally monopolised the market for online search and related advertising.

[Bloomberg]

 

[Carl_Johnson]

Google paying hefty price to keep search engine default on Safari

Alphabet Inc. paid Apple Inc. $20 billion in 2022 (R327.48 billion at that year's average exchange rate) for Google to be the default search engine in the Safari browser, according to newly unsealed court documents in the Justice Department’s antitrust lawsuit against Google.

The deal between the two tech giants is at the heart of the landmark case, in which antitrust enforcers allege Google has illegally monopolised the market for online search and related advertising.

[Bloomberg]

I honestly do not see the big deal? So what if they can afford to pay for something like that?

 

[Koos Custodiet]

Because if you use Google you have to buy what Google sells. Read some Doctorow.

Pluralistic: The specific process by which Google enshittified its search (24 Apr 2024) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

pluralistic.net

Pluralistic: Google reneged on the monopolistic bargain; The Bezzle excerpt (Part IV) (21 Feb 2024) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

pluralistic.net

"Google has long maintained that its scale is the only thing that keeps us safe from the scammers and spammers who would otherwise overwhelm any lesser-resourced defender. That's why it was so imperative that they pursue such aggressive growth, buying up hundreds of companies and integrating their products with search so that every mobile device, every ad, every video, every website, had one of Google's tendrils in it.

This is the argument that Google's defenders have put forward in their messaging on the long-overdue antitrust case against Google, where we learned that Google is spending $26b/year to make sure you never try another search engine:

 

[MoHaG]

Because if you use Google you have to buy what Google sells. Read some Doctorow.

Pluralistic: The specific process by which Google enshittified its search (24 Apr 2024) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

pluralistic.net

The relevant part there is about the stuff from this article:

Zitron tells the story of a boardroom struggle over search quality, in which Ben Gomes – a long-tenured googler who helped define the company during its best years – lost a fight with Prabhakar Raghavan, a computer scientist turned manager whose tactic for increasing the number of search queries (and thus the number of ads the company could show to searchers) was to decrease the quality of search. That way, searchers would have to spend more time on Google before they found what they were looking for.

 

[netstrider]

Good luck

 

[supersunbird]

Because if you use Google you have to buy what Google sells. Read some Doctorow.

Pluralistic: The specific process by which Google enshittified its search (24 Apr 2024) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

pluralistic.net

Pluralistic: Google reneged on the monopolistic bargain; The Bezzle excerpt (Part IV) (21 Feb 2024) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

pluralistic.net

"Google has long maintained that its scale is the only thing that keeps us safe from the scammers and spammers who would otherwise overwhelm any lesser-resourced defender. That's why it was so imperative that they pursue such aggressive growth, buying up hundreds of companies and integrating their products with search so that every mobile device, every ad, every video, every website, had one of Google's tendrils in it.

This is the argument that Google's defenders have put forward in their messaging on the long-overdue antitrust case against Google, where we learned that Google is spending $26b/year to make sure you never try another search engine:

if that was the truth, why are they unable to deal with the Elon Musk crypto deep fakes? is what I would ask the defenders.

 

[SauRoNZA]

I don’t know how it’s considered a monopoly move?

You aren’t forced to use it, it’s just the default.

You can change it at any time.