So stupid. There is no antitrust when you have options. Apple provides them in settings.
Google isn’t the only option. Enabled by default is fine.
As Microsoft found out both in the United States vs. Microsoft antitrust case and the European case, "enabled by default" can absolutely constitute an antitrust issue, because the vast majority of users never ever touch their defaults.
It's weird how twenty years later, people are still perpetuating weird myths that have long been dispelled by actual (very expensive) court cases.
Garbage headline. One analyst giving their opinion on how much the deal is worth doesn’t make it fact. Is any other analyst on the planet valuing the deal anywhere close to this? Why on earth would Google pay this much to be the default on a platform that easily allows users to change it? Seems like a massive gamble, because it is. There are plenty of better ways to gamble this amount of money. My opinion is that the deal is nowhere close to the numbers that have been thrown around for years.
So stupid. There is no antitrust when you have options. Apple provides them in settings.
Google isn’t the only option. Enabled by default is fine. Let apple do business the way they want.
Once the government starts dictating the minutiae of how an option is selected or how a default setting is set up, it has become a private sector micromanager and that is clear overreach.
This isn’t the old internet explorer precedent where you had to find and use your precious dial up resources download a competitor to compete with the bundled browser (which was hooked into the OS itself.
Apple already bundles these services and you have one conveniently enabled off the bat, with other choices ready to go at the touch of a button.
A literal non-issue. And I say this as someone who doesn’t use Google.
While what you say makes sense, it doesn't explain to me the reason for the massive payment. The fact that the payment exists implies a cartel to me.
The reason for the massive payment is because Google makes more than they pay Apple. $20 billion seems high to me, but let’s assume that’s what it is.
The world has converted from desktop to mobile use of computers. An iPhone is just a small mobile computer. There are billions of phones in the world. Of which Apple’s share is about 15% in terms of units. In terms of dollar value, Apple has about 85% of the total phone revenue. They sell fewer units but at much higher average unit prices compared to Android. This implies that the typical IPhone user is economically better off than the typical Android user. With higher levels of wealth there are higher levels of consumption. The average iPhone user is consuming more than the average android user - looking at this from a global perspective. Purchasing decisions frequently happen when people are out shopping and using their phone for price comparisons, etc. so Google benefits from Apple users doing more search, more shopping, more comparing of products on mobile devices. Which in turn drives ad revenue.
Apple could be out $20 billion a year if Google loses DOJ antitrust case
Any business generating $15-20 billion of annual revenue from a single source will surely have contingency plans against any and all threats to that revenue. Well, Gilead Sciences being the exception to that rule (if you know, you know).
So stupid. There is no antitrust when you have options. Apple provides them in settings.
If the options were that important then Google wouldn't be paying Apple $20bn for the default position.
Gotta have something. So apple offers it by default. Google pays more than anyone else can and they get the spot.
It’s like a Super Bowl commercial. Lots of potato chip companies out there but only big dogs like Doritos get the Super Bowl commercial.
Nothing wrong with making money to show one companies product before another’s. They all still can be used. No barrier. Up to the user. A government dictating to a company that they aren’t allowed to profit from competition on their platform or ruling on what defaults to set or when and how to set them is micromanagement and simply not in the governments purview.
So stupid. There is no antitrust when you have options. Apple provides them in settings.
Google is paying Apple to be protected from competition. We all benefit from competition, and when a company with a dominant market position is paying to block other companies, we end up with a marketplace that doesn't work. It seems this is exactly why we have antitrust legislation in place.
I'm not even sure Google can make their search default in Chrome - just as MS couldn't make IE default in Windows.
The bigger question is who cares? This is Apple’s bed to lay in (lie in). How does this affect the average consumer who has a choice of search engines to choose from. Just more clickbait.
So stupid. There is no antitrust when you have options. Apple provides them in settings.
Google is paying Apple to be protected from competition. We all benefit from competition, and when a company with a dominant market position is paying to block other companies, we end up with a marketplace that doesn't work. It seems this is exactly why we have antitrust legislation in place.
I'm not even sure Google can make their search default in Chrome - just as MS couldn't make IE default in Windows.
Hmm, seems like what Apple is doing is not much different than Google allowing bidding for search keywords. Someone pays to get to the front of the line. Where’s the antitrust?
So stupid. There is no antitrust when you have options. Apple provides them in settings.
Google is paying Apple to be protected from competition. We all benefit from competition, and when a company with a dominant market position is paying to block other companies, we end up with a marketplace that doesn't work. It seems this is exactly why we have antitrust legislation in place.
I'm not even sure Google can make their search default in Chrome - just as MS couldn't make IE default in Windows.
Hmm, seems like what Apple is doing is not much different than Google allowing bidding for search keywords. Someone pays to get to the front of the line. Where’s the antitrust?
Things can swing on what testimony and past communication point to.
If the business from Google's point of view is worth billions in payments to Apple, it must be worth far more to Google itself.
Would Apple sit back and not offer a default search option if it weren't for those billions from Google (or anyone else)?
It's not like Apple to pass up a revenue source worth billions and we know they have a big interest in ads as a revenue stream.
That would make it look like Google is paying Apple, not to be first on the list, but in exchange for Apple not competing at all.
Proving that idea will depend on what the investigation drags up but on a wider front it is no less true that the internet search market (from a business perspective, not a user perspective) is skewed in favor of one dominant player and competition is not working as it should.
That situation has been under investigation for years now from various authorities worldwide.
We'll have to wait and see if that line of thinking is how they see things and if so, what solutions are put on the table.
So stupid. There is no antitrust when you have options. Apple provides them in settings.
If the options were that important then Google wouldn't be paying Apple $20bn for the default position.
Gotta have something. So apple offers it by default. Google pays more than anyone else can and they get the spot.
It’s like a Super Bowl commercial. Lots of potato chip companies out there but only big dogs like Doritos get the Super Bowl commercial.
Nothing wrong with making money to show one companies product before another’s. They all still can be used. No barrier. Up to the user. A government dictating to a company that they aren’t allowed to profit from competition on their platform or ruling on what defaults to set or when and how to set them is micromanagement and simply not in the governments purview.
It's not at all like a commercial. Watching a commercial is a zero requirement, zero commitment, entirely passive endeavour. Having a default set for a user is a barrier to a user changing the option. The fact that Google values it so highly shows exactly why it is so valuable to be set as the default - because most users will never change it, and probably never even think to change it.
Apple are monetising their users' lack of knowledge about how to use Apple's own products, and given Apple's public stance on privacy that is especially galling when they've sold out to a corporation that is one of the biggest private data collectors around. This is exactly the kind of stuff that stands to get Apple in trouble as a platform owner and gatekeeper to services. They need to be seen to be agnostic or they'll get raked.
So stupid. There is no antitrust when you have options. Apple provides them in settings.
Google isn’t the only option. Enabled by default is fine. Let apple do business the way they want.
Once the government starts dictating the minutiae of how an option is selected or how a default setting is set up, it has become a private sector micromanager and that is clear overreach.
This isn’t the old internet explorer precedent where you had to find and use your precious dial up resources download a competitor to compete with the bundled browser (which was hooked into the OS itself.
Apple already bundles these services and you have one conveniently enabled off the bat, with other choices ready to go at the touch of a button.
A literal non-issue. And I say this as someone who doesn’t use Google.
While what you say makes sense, it doesn't explain to me the reason for the massive payment. The fact that the payment exists implies a cartel to me.
Do you know what a cartel is? If there are other options then it’s not a cartel.
So stupid. There is no antitrust when you have options. Apple provides them in settings.
Google isn’t the only option. Enabled by default is fine.
As Microsoft found out both in the United States vs. Microsoft antitrust case and the European case, "enabled by default" can absolutely constitute an antitrust issue, because the vast majority of users never ever touch their defaults.
It's weird how twenty years later, people are still perpetuating weird myths that have long been dispelled by actual (very expensive) court cases.
You can’t compare Windows to iOS since Apple doesn't license iOS to third party hardware companies. Microsoft does. So does Google with Android.
That’s a major difference as it prevented OEMs from entering into deals with alternate software companies to pre-load software (like Netscape on PCs or Firefox on an Android smartphone) on devices they sold.
20 years later and people still conflate Microsoft & Apple despite the cases being significantly different.
What I want to see is where in Apple earnings call financial reports are they hiding this money? It has to be accounted somewhere (maybe in services). In which case all other analysts making assumptions about how much Apple makes in The App Store, iCloud or similar must be wrong because they didn’t first deduct the Google payments from reported revenues.
Or the figure isn’t as high as people are speculating.
We’ll find out soon enough, I think. IF Apple loses $20 billion in one shot, then they will have to make an announcement before the next earnings call. Just like they’ve done in the past when sales were lower than expected. Expect this figure is much higher than any dip they’ve experienced in the past.
We’ll find out soon enough, I think. IF Apple loses $20 billion in one shot, then they will have to make an announcement before the next earnings call. Just like they’ve done in the past when sales were lower than expected. Expect this figure is much higher than any dip they’ve experienced in the past.
Even IF the DoJ wins the case, which wouldn't be until months from now anyway, Google would appeal it. I figure two years minimum before it's all 100% settled. That said, and based on what's been reported so far along with early expert legal opinions, it's such a stretch of antitrust law I don't see the government on a winning track.
It doesn't make ANY sense at all for Google to still be paying this. If Google stopped paying this tomorrow, what is Apple supposed to do? They're not going to change the default search engine on 2 billion iPhones out of spite. Google is still far and away the best search engine in existence, and that's not debatable. If you personally want a worse search experience for the illusion of privacy from another like DDG, I support your choice and ability to choose, as does Apple. But Apple isn't about to change it for everyone, to something demonstrably worse.
Now according to a Bernstein financial report first spotted by The Register, Google is actually paying Apple significantly more.
"We estimate that the ISA [Information Services Agreement] is worth $18B-20B in annual payments from Google to Apple," says the report, "accounting for 14-16 percent of Apple's annual operating profits."
So they don't know and are just guessing. Kind of like what a lot of news outlets do anyways.
Comments
It's weird how twenty years later, people are still perpetuating weird myths that have long been dispelled by actual (very expensive) court cases.
Apple could be out $20 billion a year if Google loses DOJ antitrust case
I'm not even sure Google can make their search default in Chrome - just as MS couldn't make IE default in Windows.
If the business from Google's point of view is worth billions in payments to Apple, it must be worth far more to Google itself.
Would Apple sit back and not offer a default search option if it weren't for those billions from Google (or anyone else)?
It's not like Apple to pass up a revenue source worth billions and we know they have a big interest in ads as a revenue stream.
That would make it look like Google is paying Apple, not to be first on the list, but in exchange for Apple not competing at all.
Proving that idea will depend on what the investigation drags up but on a wider front it is no less true that the internet search market (from a business perspective, not a user perspective) is skewed in favor of one dominant player and competition is not working as it should.
That situation has been under investigation for years now from various authorities worldwide.
We'll have to wait and see if that line of thinking is how they see things and if so, what solutions are put on the table.
Apple are monetising their users' lack of knowledge about how to use Apple's own products, and given Apple's public stance on privacy that is especially galling when they've sold out to a corporation that is one of the biggest private data collectors around. This is exactly the kind of stuff that stands to get Apple in trouble as a platform owner and gatekeeper to services. They need to be seen to be agnostic or they'll get raked.
That’s a major difference as it prevented OEMs from entering into deals with alternate software companies to pre-load software (like Netscape on PCs or Firefox on an Android smartphone) on devices they sold.
20 years later and people still conflate Microsoft & Apple despite the cases being significantly different.
Or the figure isn’t as high as people are speculating.
We’ll find out soon enough, I think. IF Apple loses $20 billion in one shot, then they will have to make an announcement before the next earnings call. Just like they’ve done in the past when sales were lower than expected. Expect this figure is much higher than any dip they’ve experienced in the past.
Even IF the DoJ wins the case, which wouldn't be until months from now anyway, Google would appeal it. I figure two years minimum before it's all 100% settled. That said, and based on what's been reported so far along with early expert legal opinions, it's such a stretch of antitrust law I don't see the government on a winning track.