Google Paid $1 Billion To Be Apple default iOS Search Engine

Court transcripts leaked to the web last week have revealed that Google allegedly paid Apple $1 billion to become the default search engine of choice for the mobile version of Apple’s Safari browser.

The figure relates to the amount of money Google handed over in 2014 to gain the search engine preference on millions of iPads and iPhones.  Despite being rivals in the bigger technology sphere of competition, money it seems, talks.

The information was disclosed as part of Google’s lawsuit with Oracle, one the larger ‘giants of Silicon Valley.’  The Oracle corporation alleges that the search engine giant has deliberately infringed on existing Oracle held patents surrounding the Java programming language, and Google’s use of it within its Android operating system.

During the course of court proceedings, Oracle’s legal team apparently revealed that Apple and Google had an additional deal in place where revenue generated from iOS advert conversions was shared between the two technology behemoths.  Oracle claim that at one stage the amount was as high as 34% though no details were released as to just how much either company received.

Where is this transcript now?

That’s a good question.  The much quoted transcript that has appeared in several tech news stories has been removed from the web.  According to Bloomberg;

“The transcript vanished without a trace from electronic court records…”

How come I already knew about this $1 billion Google/Apple deal?

The $1 billion figure quoted was originally ‘suggested’ in 2013 by the Morgan Stanley group,’ but this figure was never verified independently by either company.  So while there were rumors, this is as close as anyone’s ever come to proving it.

Not so sweet a deal now.

2 years is a long time in technology.  Apple has markedly been reducing its dependence upon Google for search queries in recent times.  Microsoft’s Bing is now the default search engine for Siri alongside Spotlight search.  With the last iOS.9 software updates, Safari has also started accumulating search results from Spotlight as well

The lawsuit between Oracle and Google has been ongoing since 2010, with Oracle claiming that Android mobile used parts of the Java software language that Google never paid for.

The Android mobile operating system has generated over $31 billion in revenue since Google acquired it back in 2005.