In the U.S. v. Google antitrust trial, interesting information about Google’s search revenue sharing with Apple and other firms has been revealed. Testimony during the trial has provided more specific details about these deals. University of Chicago professor Kevin Murphy revealed that Google pays Apple 36% of the revenue it collects from search advertising via the Safari browser. This particular data was never made public before and the reaction of Google’s main litigator, John Schmidtlein, in the courtroom made it obvious.
Google’s main litigator “visibly” cringed when the percentage was mentioned by the witness, which clearly shows that Google would want to keep that figure a secret. This is likely to avoid other manufacturers, like Samsung, from wanting to renegotiate their own deal with Google if they found out how much Apple was receiving. Google is also aware of this, as they submitted a filing with the court last week stating that revealing more information about its deal with Apple “would unreasonably undermine Google’s competitive standing in relation to both competitors and other counterparties.”
It’s important to note that Apple and Google have had a revenue sharing agreement since 2002, predating the iPhone. This agreement is crucial, as it also makes Google the default search engine on the iPhone. The Justice Department is using these deals as evidence to prove that Google is making these payments to prevent other search engines from becoming the default option on tech devices, which could be seen as anti-competitive.
If the DOJ wins its case and proves that Google is being anti-competitive in search, it could demand that the company be broken apart into different business units.
