On iPhone, be the default search engine cost a billion dollars … – 01net.com

For users, the choices enabled by default in software are often ignored and sometimes changed, but we never give them great importance. Yet they can be worth gold bars. Take Apple and its iPhone, for example. According to Bloomberg, the Cupertino company has received one billion dollars in 2014 from Google that its search engine is the one enabled by default in the Safari browser on iOS. This information comes from the minutes of a court hearing on 14 January that pitted Oracle and Google.

A billion dollars! It sounds huge. This is however only a small part of the total sum garnered by Google through its search engine on iOS. In this regard, a number is also quoted in the same report: 34%. The problem is that we do not know – according to the transcript – if this figure represents the portion pocketed by Apple or else that could keep Google. In the first case – most likely – this would mean that Google generated nearly $ 3 billion in advertising revenue from its search engine on the iPhone.

Double language

This revelation casts a rather harsh light on the real interests of Apple. Ostensibly, the company arises increasingly as a protector of users’ personal data. In June 2015, Tim Cook had even openly criticized Google and Facebook for the commercial exploitation of users’ personal data.

But behind the scenes, the CEO is not at all embarrassed to receive an annual windfall of more than one billion, stemming from the same use of personal data. Because even today, Google remains the search engine enabled by default in Safari on iOS. Still, Apple could have chosen DuckDuckGo, a search engine that does not store any personal data and which exists in iOS since version 8 (June 2014). The firm could have chosen DuckDuckGo as web search engine for Spotlight, the meta-search engine on iOS. But again, Apple has preferred to sign in June 2014, certainly a lucrative deal with Microsoft’s Bing.

In any case, we understand better now why some pourriciels and other toolbar encourage us constantly changing search engine or default web page. Being in pole position on the user’s screen, it has a price high price.

Source:

Bloomberg