In lawsuit, DOJ says nearly half of Google search traffic in 2019 came from Apple products and estimates Google pays Apple $8B to $12B per year
payments that are as much as one-fifth of Apple's annual net income. https://twitter.com/... @toddbishop : Compared to the antitrust complaint against @Microsoft 2+ decades ago, the introduction to @TheJusticeDept's @Google complaint today reads more like a magazine piece. https://twitter.com/... Thomas Baekdal / @baekdal : Mind you, I actually think the problem here is more to do with Apple than with Google. It's Apple's dominance of the mobile space that is creating this problem. So if Google is prevented from doing this, nothing stops Apple from just selling it to someone else. @alecstapp : The complaint makes a lot of hay out of Google's deal with Apple to be the default search engine on Safari. Of course, being the default helps increase market share. But Tim Cook has also said that Google is the best search engine. Should the default be an inferior product? https://twitter.com/... @aaronwall : https://www.wsj.com/... “Though Google and Apple have been tight-lipped on how much their deal is worth, the lawsuit projects that it accounts for between 15% and 20% of Apple's annual profits” Warren Buffett once described Apple's iPhone as a real estate play for user attention Matt Stoller / @matthewstoller : This is a Google antitrust suit but it may take away 20% of Apple's profits. https://twitter.com/... Benjamin Mayo / @bzamayo : It's easy to laugh off the Apple default search deal because at the end of the day, people want Google. But imagine Bing won the bidding war instead ... everyone would be furious. https://twitter.com/... Paul Haddad / @tapbot_paul : I think most people would agree that Google is the only search engine that makes any sense as default for iOS. So why do they even bother paying Apple any money? What leverage does Apple have over Google here? Richard Hoeg / @hoeglaw : Appears to be the way of things nowadays. They just assume that journalists and Twitter folks will make it a few pages in and they want some gloss up front. See Epic v Apple or even the Antitrust Subcommittee digital antitrust report. https://twitter.com/... Edmund Lee / @edmundlee : @andrewrsorkin if anything, the reverse could be argued: Apple is using its market dominance to extract terms from Google and even if it were banned, chances are phone makers would default to Google, or absent any default, consumers would choose Google Paul Haddad / @tapbot_paul : Doesn't Apple have a moral obligation to default to the “best” search engine for its users? Where “best” isn't defined by whoever pays them the most money. Michael Y. Lee / @yanche : @sandeepvaheesan To me it reveals how fragile their dominance is that they'd feel the need to pay apple billions for making them the default search engine on iPhonesAdam Kovacevich / @adamkovac : 4. All deals were the result of competitive bidding (mostly vs. MSFT) 5. Search deals benefit consumers by cross-subsidizing platform and content development costs 6. Google search so preferred by consumers that platforms face blowback over non-Google search defaults 9/ @adi : @tapbot_paul I'm flumuxed that you're even asking this. They could make Duck Duck Go the default, wrap a privacy story around it, and cost Google billions. That's a *lot* of leverage. And just one example. Parker / @pt : @mathewi Because Apple's alternative is to take $8B from Microsoft. Apple was never going to give that real estate away for free. If you made it illegal for them to sell it, you think they wouldn't pick Google still? Benedict Evans / @benedictevans : DoJ: “Apple dominates search traffic in the USA, and Google is so afraid of losing this traffic it gives Apple $10-15bn a year. Therefore we're suing (checks notes) Google, and, um...” @keachhagey : Interesting focus of expected DOJ case: how Google's market share preservation moves, like paying Apple $$$ to be default iPhone search, deprive competitors of enough data to make their products work very well https://twitter.com/... Dare Obasanjo / @carnage4life : Everytime Apple says privacy is a human right, I remember this stat. https://twitter.com/... Tom Giles / @tsgiles : The idea of Google and Apple working as if they are “one company” is pretty much the worst-case scenario in the mind of an antitrust regulator. I'm old enough to remember Googlezon. https://twitter.com/... Steve Troughton-Smith / @stroughtonsmith : “if lost, would result in a “Code Red” scenario. That's because nearly half of Google search traffic in 2019 came from Apple products, according to the lawsuit” 👀 https://twitter.com/... Horace Dediu / @asymco : “Nearly half of Google search traffic in 2019 came from Apple products” 🤔 Should I file this under “Apple is Doomed” or “Apple is a Monopoly”? Perhaps both.
Craziest stat in DOJ's Google suit: Google's payments to Apple to be default search amount to 15-20% of Apple's global profits. via @realrobcopeland @timkhiggins https://www.wsj.com/... via @WSJ
Important point: If Google needs to pay Apple billions of dollars per year to be the default search engine on Apple devices, that's indicative of Apple's market power over distribution, not Google's. https://twitter.com/...
Great excerpt in U.S. v. Google on how Google shares its monopoly profits with Apple. Google pays billions for exclusive pre-installation on Apple devices—payments that are as much as one-fifth of Apple's annual net income. https://twitter.com/...
Compared to the antitrust complaint against @Microsoft 2+ decades ago, the introduction to @TheJusticeDept's @Google complaint today reads more like a magazine piece. https://twitter.com/...
DoJ: “Apple dominates search traffic in the USA, and Google is so afraid of losing this traffic it gives Apple $10-15bn a year. Therefore we're suing (checks notes) Google, and, um...”
Mind you, I actually think the problem here is more to do with Apple than with Google. It's Apple's dominance of the mobile space that is creating this problem. So if Google is prevented from doing this, nothing stops Apple from just selling it to someone else.
“Nearly half of Google search traffic in 2019 came from Apple products” 🤔 Should I file this under “Apple is Doomed” or “Apple is a Monopoly”? Perhaps both.
The complaint makes a lot of hay out of Google's deal with Apple to be the default search engine on Safari. Of course, being the default helps increase market share. But Tim Cook has also said that Google is the best search engine. Should the default be an inferior product? https…
https://www.wsj.com/... “Though Google and Apple have been tight-lipped on how much their deal is worth, the lawsuit projects that it accounts for between 15% and 20% of Apple's annual profits” Warren Buffett once described Apple's iPhone as a real estate play for user attention
It's easy to laugh off the Apple default search deal because at the end of the day, people want Google. But imagine Bing won the bidding war instead ... everyone would be furious. https://twitter.com/...
I think most people would agree that Google is the only search engine that makes any sense as default for iOS. So why do they even bother paying Apple any money? What leverage does Apple have over Google here?
Appears to be the way of things nowadays. They just assume that journalists and Twitter folks will make it a few pages in and they want some gloss up front. See Epic v Apple or even the Antitrust Subcommittee digital antitrust report. https://twitter.com/...
@andrewrsorkin if anything, the reverse could be argued: Apple is using its market dominance to extract terms from Google and even if it were banned, chances are phone makers would default to Google, or absent any default, consumers would choose Google
Doesn't Apple have a moral obligation to default to the “best” search engine for its users? Where “best” isn't defined by whoever pays them the most money.
@sandeepvaheesan To me it reveals how fragile their dominance is that they'd feel the need to pay apple billions for making them the default search engine on iPhones
4. All deals were the result of competitive bidding (mostly vs. MSFT) 5. Search deals benefit consumers by cross-subsidizing platform and content development costs 6. Google search so preferred by consumers that platforms face blowback over non-Google search defaults 9/
The idea of Google and Apple working as if they are “one company” is pretty much the worst-case scenario in the mind of an antitrust regulator. I'm old enough to remember Googlezon. https://twitter.com/...
@tapbot_paul I'm flumuxed that you're even asking this. They could make Duck Duck Go the default, wrap a privacy story around it, and cost Google billions. That's a *lot* of leverage. And just one example.
@mathewi Because Apple's alternative is to take $8B from Microsoft. Apple was never going to give that real estate away for free. If you made it illegal for them to sell it, you think they wouldn't pick Google still?
Interesting focus of expected DOJ case: how Google's market share preservation moves, like paying Apple $$$ to be default iPhone search, deprive competitors of enough data to make their products work very well https://twitter.com/...
“if lost, would result in a “Code Red” scenario. That's because nearly half of Google search traffic in 2019 came from Apple products, according to the lawsuit” 👀 https://twitter.com/...
But Google (and Apple and Amazon) are all many times stronger than Microsoft ever was at its zenith in the 90s. We're extremely unlikely to see a repeat of an obstinate Gates pissing directly at the legal system, making the villainy so easily attackable. https://www.youtube.com/.…
The funny thing about passages like this - you could just as easily use this to argue that Apple uses its market dominance in the US browser market to extort TAC from Google - that Google is the victim and Apple the monopolist 🤷♂️ https://twitter.com/...
4) lawsuit claims majority (60%) of Google's search biz is due to exclusionary deals with OS and browsers to be default search. e.g G's deal with Firefox funds nearly all of parent Mozilla and likely prevented Firefox from leaning into tracking prevention until Safari came along.…