There was a rumor years back that Apple would announce a revolutionary search engine and a pre-recorded Steve Jobs would reveal it. Sounded fu**ing crazy like something Steve would do since he hated that knockoff-Apple spyware scumbag company.
Beyond the technology in this proposition, I have to wonder about the business model. Apple is apparently receiving billions of dollars from Google to use their search engine by default. Why would Apple want to stop that revenue stream? Further, does Apple really want to get into the advertising business? One of the reasons we trust Apple today is precisely because their business model doesn't depend on them harvesting our information to monetize with advertisers as Google does. The alternative is to have an unpaid service like Maps, but not only would that cost money to run such a service, but Apple would be losing revenue from Google in the process. None of this makes much sense to me from a business model perspective.
It makes a ton of sense. I would drop Google's money for a proprietary engine. Knowing Apple they can take a huge cut of Google's money with 10% marketshare.
Apple doesn't have to spy on you like a creepy neighbor. If I search "Dog Collar" then it's pretty obvious what ads I need.
If Apple can take on Google search that could easily cripple them. I'd do it for payback for creating knockoff iPhone/iPads alone.
If Apple does introduce a web portal for users to search with, I’m confident it will be SIRI.COM because they already own that domain and when I go there it seems to be a site just waiting for a purpose.
No, it just redirects to the Siri page on Apple.com. They of course bought Siri.com to protect their brand.
Apple continues to think they can do everything and anything. They don’t have a core competency anymore. When you try to do EVERYTHING, you end up doing everything poorly. I’m still waiting for that vast amount of money Apple has to get them back to proper Q/A testing...
If they put half as much energy into search as you do into complaining, it'll be a winner.
Google has to get those billions they pay Apple somewhere, presumably from the ads. And they would not make much money if they gave Apple more than a relatively token percentage.
So it should be relatively easy for Apple to make more money by selling ads based on your search terms, which does not represent a privacy issue. You are never connected to a live identity, you are just someone who searched for MacBook Pros. Then you get ads for them.
I think many people would like a search provider more trusted than Google but with a better brand and more resources than DuckDuckGo. I think it's potentially a very good business for them.
Pull the trigger and make the acquisition - Duckduckgo.com.
I use DDG. Their search content actually comes from Yahoo/Bing (can’t remember which). It’s also starting to get more cluttered, just like every dogdamned search engine always has over time.
Apple continues to think they can do everything and anything. They don’t have a core competency anymore. When you try to do EVERYTHING, you end up doing everything poorly. I’m still waiting for that vast amount of money Apple has to get them back to proper Q/A testing...
You continue to make broad, sweeping generalizations, often based on nothing but rumor alone. You're also wrong...Apple doesn't do everything, and says "no" to tons of things, much to the chagrin of users here (ex: wireless networking).
Judging by the (still) sorry state of Apple Maps, no thanks.
Exactly.
I still use Google maps and Spotify despite trying Apple Maps and Music multiple times.
Sometimes Apple isn’t bringing the best products to the market.
Nuts. I switched to Apple Maps as soon as it was available, and only had to use GM for one address in memory when AM was new. Haven't used GM in years and and years.
And I prefer Apple Music to Spotify, because I like the way it integrates with my existing music library, the lock screen, etc. I've used Spotify and don't feel there is any quantum leap advantage there. It's an app. It plays music.
Beyond the technology in this proposition, I have to wonder about the business model. Apple is apparently receiving billions of dollars from Google to use their search engine by default. Why would Apple want to stop that revenue stream? Further, does Apple really want to get into the advertising business? One of the reasons we trust Apple today is precisely because their business model doesn't depend on them harvesting our information to monetize with advertisers as Google does. The alternative is to have an unpaid service like Maps, but not only would that cost money to run such a service, but Apple would be losing revenue from Google in the process. None of this makes much sense to me from a business model perspective.
I suspect if they did get into web based search their advertising model would look similar to how it does on the App Store, where they are already in the advertising business.
In other words, no information harvesting, just classic paid-for sponsored search terms. Similar in many ways to DuckDuckGo's model, which has proven well for them.
It will indeed be interesting to see if Apple is prepared to drop the significant payment they receive from Google though. A test of their privacy focused values vs. lucrative revenue streams...
You might look at how Apple uses you as a customer for targeted advertising. Your data has a play in it. It's more like Google than DDG. Apple like Google exposes no identifiable user data to the advertisers, private information is never shared, customers are relegated to an advertising ID number and not a name or number or email address, and "targets" are aggregated groups with similar preferences and/or demographics rather than an individual person.
From Apple themselves:
On the App Store, Apple News, and Stocks, we may use information such as the following to assign you to segments:
Account Information: Your name, address, age, and devices registered to your account. Information such as your first name in your Apple ID registration page, or salutation in your iTunes Account may be used to derive your gender.
Downloads & Activity: The music, movies, books, TV shows, and apps you download as well as any in-app purchases.
Activities in Other Apps: App developers, subject to their own privacy policies and applicable laws, may provide information regarding your in-app purchases and activities such as game level completion.
Advertising: Your interaction with advertising delivered by Apple’s advertising platform.
Other Segments: For specific advertising campaigns, advertisers may match information they have about their users with Apple’s information to create segments, which must contain at least 5,000 people. Advertisers can use an Advertising Identifier, or other information they have about users, such as a phone number or email, to match users to segments on Apple’s advertising platform. During the match process, these identifiers are obscured to limit personally identifiable information being disclosed. To choose which segments they match users to, Advertisers may use information they have from interactions with users. This information is acquired and used subject to the Advertisers’ own privacy policies.
When selecting which ad to display from multiple ads for which you are eligible, we may use some of the above mentioned information, as well as your App Store browsing activity, to determine which ad is likely to be most relevant to you. App Store browsing activity includes the content and apps you tap and view while browsing the App Store. This information is aggregated across users so that it does not identify you.
So I would certainly expect that if Apple chooses to broaden their scope and offer a search engine of their own that it will be monetized thru ads very similar (tho not the same) to the way Google does. With that said, I don't personally see the logic in Apple doing so. Any business at the end of the day is in it for the money. Unless Apple thinks it will give them more profits than the $B's Google gives them it doesn't make business sense.
Well, at least they didn’t grab the data from your browser when you asked them not to.
Or swipe it in a drive by.
Now who would do such a thing. ߤ䦬t;br>
About 10 years ago (gosh time flies by) Google collected a few wi-fi snippets in Germany without permission or disclosure, then likely fibbed about it being a "mistake". Bad Google.
On your other question I have no idea who grabbed browser data without permission. I think you might mistakenly be referring to "Incognito mode" on Chrome (essentially the same as Private Mode in Safari), but if not you'll have to be more specific. Who?
I'm not going to speak for him but he may have been alluding to the turning off the "Do Not Track" flag thingie where they got the big fine.
Beyond the technology in this proposition, I have to wonder about the business model. Apple is apparently receiving billions of dollars from Google to use their search engine by default. Why would Apple want to stop that revenue stream? Further, does Apple really want to get into the advertising business? One of the reasons we trust Apple today is precisely because their business model doesn't depend on them harvesting our information to monetize with advertisers as Google does. The alternative is to have an unpaid service like Maps, but not only would that cost money to run such a service, but Apple would be losing revenue from Google in the process. None of this makes much sense to me from a business model perspective.
I suspect if they did get into web based search their advertising model would look similar to how it does on the App Store, where they are already in the advertising business.
In other words, no information harvesting, just classic paid-for sponsored search terms. Similar in many ways to DuckDuckGo's model, which has proven well for them.
It will indeed be interesting to see if Apple is prepared to drop the significant payment they receive from Google though. A test of their privacy focused values vs. lucrative revenue streams...
You might look at how Apple uses you as a customer for targeted advertising. Your data has a play in it. It's more like Google than DDG. Apple like Google exposes no identifiable user data to the advertisers, private information is never shared, customers are relegated to an advertising ID number and not a name or number or email address, and "targets" are aggregated groups with similar preferences and/or demographics rather than an individual person.
From Apple themselves:
On the App Store, Apple News, and Stocks, we may use information such as the following to assign you to segments:
Account Information: Your name, address, age, and devices registered to your account. Information such as your first name in your Apple ID registration page, or salutation in your iTunes Account may be used to derive your gender.
Downloads & Activity: The music, movies, books, TV shows, and apps you download as well as any in-app purchases.
Activities in Other Apps: App developers, subject to their own privacy policies and applicable laws, may provide information regarding your in-app purchases and activities such as game level completion.
Advertising: Your interaction with advertising delivered by Apple’s advertising platform.
Other Segments: For specific advertising campaigns, advertisers may match information they have about their users with Apple’s information to create segments, which must contain at least 5,000 people. Advertisers can use an Advertising Identifier, or other information they have about users, such as a phone number or email, to match users to segments on Apple’s advertising platform. During the match process, these identifiers are obscured to limit personally identifiable information being disclosed. To choose which segments they match users to, Advertisers may use information they have from interactions with users. This information is acquired and used subject to the Advertisers’ own privacy policies.
When selecting which ad to display from multiple ads for which you are eligible, we may use some of the above mentioned information, as well as your App Store browsing activity, to determine which ad is likely to be most relevant to you. App Store browsing activity includes the content and apps you tap and view while browsing the App Store. This information is aggregated across users so that it does not identify you.
So I would certainly expect that if Apple chooses to broaden their scope and offer a search engine of their own that it will be monetized thru ads very similar (tho not the same) to the way Google does. With that said, I don't personally see the logic in Apple doing so. Any business at the end of the day is in it for the money. Unless Apple thinks it will give them more profits than the $B's Google gives them it doesn't make business sense.
Well, at least they didn’t grab the data from your browser when you asked them not to.
Or swipe it in a drive by.
Now who would do such a thing. ߤ䦬t;br>
About 10 years ago (gosh time flies by) Google collected a few wi-fi snippets in Germany without permission or disclosure, then likely fibbed about it being a "mistake". Bad Google.
On your other question I have no idea who grabbed browser data without permission. I think you might mistakenly be referring to "Incognito mode" on Chrome (essentially the same as Private Mode in Safari), but if not you'll have to be more specific. Who?
I'm not going to speak for him but he may have been alluding to the turning off the "Do Not Track" flag thingie where they got the big fine.
The OP has been active quite a bit since I posed that question and hasn't bothered with an answer so I surmise it was what I suggested it was, Incognito Mode
FWIW the fine you refer to wasn't for tracking, nor was it a big one. It was for telling users the wrong way to opt-out. Do Not Track is not a legal mandate, and it's failed now anyway since no one honored it, but giving people the right information about how to turn data collection off is, especially since Google was already under a consent order for some short-lived social platform they had a few years before. TBH I don't know what that one was about or why.
Beyond the technology in this proposition, I have to wonder about the business model. Apple is apparently receiving billions of dollars from Google to use their search engine by default. Why would Apple want to stop that revenue stream? Further, does Apple really want to get into the advertising business? One of the reasons we trust Apple today is precisely because their business model doesn't depend on them harvesting our information to monetize with advertisers as Google does. The alternative is to have an unpaid service like Maps, but not only would that cost money to run such a service, but Apple would be losing revenue from Google in the process. None of this makes much sense to me from a business model perspective.
I suspect if they did get into web based search their advertising model would look similar to how it does on the App Store, where they are already in the advertising business.
In other words, no information harvesting, just classic paid-for sponsored search terms. Similar in many ways to DuckDuckGo's model, which has proven well for them.
It will indeed be interesting to see if Apple is prepared to drop the significant payment they receive from Google though. A test of their privacy focused values vs. lucrative revenue streams...
You might look at how Apple uses you as a customer for targeted advertising. Your data has a play in it. It's more like Google than DDG. Apple like Google exposes no identifiable user data to the advertisers, private information is never shared, customers are relegated to an advertising ID number and not a name or number or email address, and "targets" are aggregated groups with similar preferences and/or demographics rather than an individual person.
From Apple themselves:
On the App Store, Apple News, and Stocks, we may use information such as the following to assign you to segments:
Account Information: Your name, address, age, and devices registered to your account. Information such as your first name in your Apple ID registration page, or salutation in your iTunes Account may be used to derive your gender.
Downloads & Activity: The music, movies, books, TV shows, and apps you download as well as any in-app purchases.
Activities in Other Apps: App developers, subject to their own privacy policies and applicable laws, may provide information regarding your in-app purchases and activities such as game level completion.
Advertising: Your interaction with advertising delivered by Apple’s advertising platform.
Other Segments: For specific advertising campaigns, advertisers may match information they have about their users with Apple’s information to create segments, which must contain at least 5,000 people. Advertisers can use an Advertising Identifier, or other information they have about users, such as a phone number or email, to match users to segments on Apple’s advertising platform. During the match process, these identifiers are obscured to limit personally identifiable information being disclosed. To choose which segments they match users to, Advertisers may use information they have from interactions with users. This information is acquired and used subject to the Advertisers’ own privacy policies.
When selecting which ad to display from multiple ads for which you are eligible, we may use some of the above mentioned information, as well as your App Store browsing activity, to determine which ad is likely to be most relevant to you. App Store browsing activity includes the content and apps you tap and view while browsing the App Store. This information is aggregated across users so that it does not identify you.
So I would certainly expect that if Apple chooses to broaden their scope and offer a search engine of their own that it will be monetized thru ads very similar (tho not the same) to the way Google does. With that said, I don't personally see the logic in Apple doing so. Any business at the end of the day is in it for the money. Unless Apple thinks it will give them more profits than the $B's Google gives them it doesn't make business sense.
Well, at least they didn’t grab the data from your browser when you asked them not to.
Or swipe it in a drive by.
Now who would do such a thing. ߤ䦬t;br>
About 10 years ago (gosh time flies by) Google collected a few wi-fi snippets in Germany without permission or disclosure, then likely fibbed about it being a "mistake". Bad Google.
On your other question I have no idea who grabbed browser data without permission. I think you might mistakenly be referring to "Incognito mode" on Chrome (essentially the same as Private Mode in Safari), but if not you'll have to be more specific. Who?
I'm not going to speak for him but he may have been alluding to the turning off the "Do Not Track" flag thingie where they got the big fine.
The OP has been active quite a bit since I posed that question and hasn't bothered with an answer so I surmise it was what I suggested it was, Incognito Mode
FWIW the fine you refer to wasn't for tracking, nor was it a big one. It was for telling users the wrong way to opt-out. Do Not Track is not a legal mandate, and it's failed now anyway since no one honored it, but giving people the right information about how to turn data collection off is, especially since Google was already under a consent order for some short-lived social platform they had a few years before. TBH I don't know what that one was about or why.
My bad, I got the wording a bit wrong, it was in 2012 after all (time flies indeed), it was a bit fuzzy. I did remember turning off and track : "Google has been caught bypassing the privacy settings on Apple's Safari Web browser, letting advertisers track users in unintendedways." https://money.cnn.com/2012/02/17/technology/google_tracking_safari/index.htm?iid=EL
Beyond the technology in this proposition, I have to wonder about the business model. Apple is apparently receiving billions of dollars from Google to use their search engine by default. Why would Apple want to stop that revenue stream? Further, does Apple really want to get into the advertising business? One of the reasons we trust Apple today is precisely because their business model doesn't depend on them harvesting our information to monetize with advertisers as Google does. The alternative is to have an unpaid service like Maps, but not only would that cost money to run such a service, but Apple would be losing revenue from Google in the process. None of this makes much sense to me from a business model perspective.
I hate the tracking and hidden algorithms with Google. Not sure if their sending me to the site that best meets my query or the one that’s paid Google the most. Hopefully, with their emphasis on privacy Apple’s on device service (it won’t be general access I’m sure) will avoid either of those pitfalls.
Beyond the technology in this proposition, I have to wonder about the business model. Apple is apparently receiving billions of dollars from Google to use their search engine by default. Why would Apple want to stop that revenue stream? Further, does Apple really want to get into the advertising business? One of the reasons we trust Apple today is precisely because their business model doesn't depend on them harvesting our information to monetize with advertisers as Google does. The alternative is to have an unpaid service like Maps, but not only would that cost money to run such a service, but Apple would be losing revenue from Google in the process. None of this makes much sense to me from a business model perspective.
I suspect if they did get into web based search their advertising model would look similar to how it does on the App Store, where they are already in the advertising business.
In other words, no information harvesting, just classic paid-for sponsored search terms. Similar in many ways to DuckDuckGo's model, which has proven well for them.
It will indeed be interesting to see if Apple is prepared to drop the significant payment they receive from Google though. A test of their privacy focused values vs. lucrative revenue streams...
You might look at how Apple uses you as a customer for targeted advertising. Your data has a play in it. It's more like Google than DDG. Apple like Google exposes no identifiable user data to the advertisers, private information is never shared, customers are relegated to an advertising ID number and not a name or number or email address, and "targets" are aggregated groups with similar preferences and/or demographics rather than an individual person.
From Apple themselves:
On the App Store, Apple News, and Stocks, we may use information such as the following to assign you to segments:
Account Information: Your name, address, age, and devices registered to your account. Information such as your first name in your Apple ID registration page, or salutation in your iTunes Account may be used to derive your gender.
Downloads & Activity: The music, movies, books, TV shows, and apps you download as well as any in-app purchases.
Activities in Other Apps: App developers, subject to their own privacy policies and applicable laws, may provide information regarding your in-app purchases and activities such as game level completion.
Advertising: Your interaction with advertising delivered by Apple’s advertising platform.
Other Segments: For specific advertising campaigns, advertisers may match information they have about their users with Apple’s information to create segments, which must contain at least 5,000 people. Advertisers can use an Advertising Identifier, or other information they have about users, such as a phone number or email, to match users to segments on Apple’s advertising platform. During the match process, these identifiers are obscured to limit personally identifiable information being disclosed. To choose which segments they match users to, Advertisers may use information they have from interactions with users. This information is acquired and used subject to the Advertisers’ own privacy policies.
When selecting which ad to display from multiple ads for which you are eligible, we may use some of the above mentioned information, as well as your App Store browsing activity, to determine which ad is likely to be most relevant to you. App Store browsing activity includes the content and apps you tap and view while browsing the App Store. This information is aggregated across users so that it does not identify you.
So I would certainly expect that if Apple chooses to broaden their scope and offer a search engine of their own that it will be monetized thru ads very similar (tho not the same) to the way Google does. With that said, I don't personally see the logic in Apple doing so. Any business at the end of the day is in it for the money. Unless Apple thinks it will give them more profits than the $B's Google gives them it doesn't make business sense.
Well, at least they didn’t grab the data from your browser when you asked them not to.
Or swipe it in a drive by.
Now who would do such a thing. ߤ䦬t;br>
About 10 years ago (gosh time flies by) Google collected a few wi-fi snippets in Germany without permission or disclosure, then likely fibbed about it being a "mistake". Bad Google.
On your other question I have no idea who grabbed browser data without permission. I think you might mistakenly be referring to "Incognito mode" on Chrome (essentially the same as Private Mode in Safari), but if not you'll have to be more specific. Who?
I'm not going to speak for him but he may have been alluding to the turning off the "Do Not Track" flag thingie where they got the big fine.
The OP has been active quite a bit since I posed that question and hasn't bothered with an answer so I surmise it was what I suggested it was, Incognito Mode
FWIW the fine you refer to wasn't for tracking, nor was it a big one. It was for telling users the wrong way to opt-out. Do Not Track is not a legal mandate, and it's failed now anyway since no one honored it, but giving people the right information about how to turn data collection off is, especially since Google was already under a consent order for some short-lived social platform they had a few years before. TBH I don't know what that one was about or why.
Well, no one pays me to be here GoogleGuy, so I don’t usually spend the time to correct you on everything.
But as Jony0 rightly pointed out, yup, Google got dinged and fined for tracking when folk told them not to track. Saying it happened years ago so it doesn’t matter is a sure fire way to make them think it’s okay to do it again.
Beyond the technology in this proposition, I have to wonder about the business model. Apple is apparently receiving billions of dollars from Google to use their search engine by default. Why would Apple want to stop that revenue stream? Further, does Apple really want to get into the advertising business? One of the reasons we trust Apple today is precisely because their business model doesn't depend on them harvesting our information to monetize with advertisers as Google does. The alternative is to have an unpaid service like Maps, but not only would that cost money to run such a service, but Apple would be losing revenue from Google in the process. None of this makes much sense to me from a business model perspective.
I suspect if they did get into web based search their advertising model would look similar to how it does on the App Store, where they are already in the advertising business.
In other words, no information harvesting, just classic paid-for sponsored search terms. Similar in many ways to DuckDuckGo's model, which has proven well for them.
It will indeed be interesting to see if Apple is prepared to drop the significant payment they receive from Google though. A test of their privacy focused values vs. lucrative revenue streams...
You might look at how Apple uses you as a customer for targeted advertising. Your data has a play in it. It's more like Google than DDG. Apple like Google exposes no identifiable user data to the advertisers, private information is never shared, customers are relegated to an advertising ID number and not a name or number or email address, and "targets" are aggregated groups with similar preferences and/or demographics rather than an individual person.
From Apple themselves:
On the App Store, Apple News, and Stocks, we may use information such as the following to assign you to segments:
Account Information: Your name, address, age, and devices registered to your account. Information such as your first name in your Apple ID registration page, or salutation in your iTunes Account may be used to derive your gender.
Downloads & Activity: The music, movies, books, TV shows, and apps you download as well as any in-app purchases.
Activities in Other Apps: App developers, subject to their own privacy policies and applicable laws, may provide information regarding your in-app purchases and activities such as game level completion.
Advertising: Your interaction with advertising delivered by Apple’s advertising platform.
Other Segments: For specific advertising campaigns, advertisers may match information they have about their users with Apple’s information to create segments, which must contain at least 5,000 people. Advertisers can use an Advertising Identifier, or other information they have about users, such as a phone number or email, to match users to segments on Apple’s advertising platform. During the match process, these identifiers are obscured to limit personally identifiable information being disclosed. To choose which segments they match users to, Advertisers may use information they have from interactions with users. This information is acquired and used subject to the Advertisers’ own privacy policies.
When selecting which ad to display from multiple ads for which you are eligible, we may use some of the above mentioned information, as well as your App Store browsing activity, to determine which ad is likely to be most relevant to you. App Store browsing activity includes the content and apps you tap and view while browsing the App Store. This information is aggregated across users so that it does not identify you.
So I would certainly expect that if Apple chooses to broaden their scope and offer a search engine of their own that it will be monetized thru ads very similar (tho not the same) to the way Google does. With that said, I don't personally see the logic in Apple doing so. Any business at the end of the day is in it for the money. Unless Apple thinks it will give them more profits than the $B's Google gives them it doesn't make business sense.
Well, at least they didn’t grab the data from your browser when you asked them not to.
Or swipe it in a drive by.
Now who would do such a thing. ߤ䦬t;br>
About 10 years ago (gosh time flies by) Google collected a few wi-fi snippets in Germany without permission or disclosure, then likely fibbed about it being a "mistake". Bad Google.
On your other question I have no idea who grabbed browser data without permission. I think you might mistakenly be referring to "Incognito mode" on Chrome (essentially the same as Private Mode in Safari), but if not you'll have to be more specific. Who?
I'm not going to speak for him but he may have been alluding to the turning off the "Do Not Track" flag thingie where they got the big fine.
The OP has been active quite a bit since I posed that question and hasn't bothered with an answer so I surmise it was what I suggested it was, Incognito Mode
FWIW the fine you refer to wasn't for tracking, nor was it a big one. It was for telling users the wrong way to opt-out. Do Not Track is not a legal mandate, and it's failed now anyway since no one honored it, but giving people the right information about how to turn data collection off is, especially since Google was already under a consent order for some short-lived social platform they had a few years before. TBH I don't know what that one was about or why.
Well, no one pays me to be here GoogleGuy, so I don’t usually spend the time to correct you on everything.
But as Jony0 rightly pointed out, yup, Google got dinged and fined for tracking when folk told them not to track.
No they did not get "dinged and fined for tracking", it was permissible then and still permissible now. Read a bit more and figure out what the fine was factually for.
Comments
Have you used Apple's search engine or are you talking out of your ass?
It makes a ton of sense. I would drop Google's money for a proprietary engine. Knowing Apple they can take a huge cut of Google's money with 10% marketshare.
Apple doesn't have to spy on you like a creepy neighbor. If I search "Dog Collar" then it's pretty obvious what ads I need.
If Apple can take on Google search that could easily cripple them. I'd do it for payback for creating knockoff iPhone/iPads alone.
Oh noes, a toggle that takes a second to change. I changed mine to DuckDuckGo once several years ago and haven't had to touch it since.
If they put half as much energy into search as you do into complaining, it'll be a winner.
So it should be relatively easy for Apple to make more money by selling ads based on your search terms, which does not represent a privacy issue. You are never connected to a live identity, you are just someone who searched for MacBook Pros. Then you get ads for them.
I think many people would like a search provider more trusted than Google but with a better brand and more resources than DuckDuckGo. I think it's potentially a very good business for them.
DuckDuckGo's results are a compilation of "over 400" sources,[10] including Yahoo! Search BOSS, Wolfram Alpha, Bing, Yandex, its own web crawler (the DuckDuckBot) and others.[4][10][11][12] It also uses data from crowdsourced sites, including Wikipedia, to populate knowledge panel boxes to the right of the results.[12][13]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DuckDuckGo
And I prefer Apple Music to Spotify, because I like the way it integrates with my existing music library, the lock screen, etc. I've used Spotify and don't feel there is any quantum leap advantage there. It's an app. It plays music.
FWIW the fine you refer to wasn't for tracking, nor was it a big one. It was for telling users the wrong way to opt-out. Do Not Track is not a legal mandate, and it's failed now anyway since no one honored it, but giving people the right information about how to turn data collection off is, especially since Google was already under a consent order for some short-lived social platform they had a few years before. TBH I don't know what that one was about or why.
"Google has been caught bypassing the privacy settings on Apple's Safari Web browser, letting advertisers track users in unintended ways."
https://money.cnn.com/2012/02/17/technology/google_tracking_safari/index.htm?iid=EL
And I will agree with you that from Google's POV, a $22.5 million fine is not a big one, but it was after all at the time a record :
https://money.cnn.com/2012/08/09/technology/google-safari-settle/index.html
Or just read my post previous again.