Google Pays Apple part of the income from the search at Google Chrome on iOS. This is one of the aspects of relations between the two companies, which currently concerns the competition for competition and the British markets (CMA).
Everyone knows that Google pays Apple, Samsung and other manufacturers billions of dollars to make its search system by default on devices, but it has not yet been reported that CMA is studying the role of Google Chrome and in the Google agreement agreement about Section of income from search with Apple.
The media requests to refute or confirm this fact of Apple and Google did not answer. And the regulator representative said that “CMA cannot comment or disclose any confidential information.”
The British competition for competition supervision is worried that Apple’s Google payments are repelled from the iPhone manufacturer to compete with Google. It is argued that significant payments without the absence of any new developments stimulate Apple to continue to “do nothing” and not invest in the improvement of Safari to such an extent that it can become a worthy opponent of Google Chrome.
В своем заключительном The CMA mobile ecosa mobile ecosystem report modestly describes various revenue distribution agreements between Apple and Google, which allegedly suppress competition.
According to the regulator, Google pays Apple part of the search income that he receives from the browser traffic on iOS, in the following cases (in accordance with various commercial agreements):
· He is a default search engine in Safari;
· On the Apple device, Google Chrome.
is used to search for search.
The alleged Google payments for the default search status in Safari amounted to 1-1.5 billion pounds in 2021 for the UK. It is noted that these amounts are much more than those that Google pays the next largest partner, Samsung. Such a high level of payment probably reflects the strong position of Apple in the field of browsers and browser engines (largely due to the restriction of Webkit).
Given the share of income when Google Chrome or Safari competes for iOS users, instead of receiving all income from search traffic, Apple receives only part (that is, income that the company has not had the right to previously). Thus, these income distribution agreements weaken the incentives for competition between browsers on iOS.
But the true reasons for such payments are difficult to explain. Apple does not provide any obvious value to users who want to use Google Search in Google Chrome.
Donald Polden, an honorary dean and professor of the law of the University of California Santa Clara, agreed with CMA and added that Apple will have very few incentives to compete with Google in any search market, and thus, it will retain the duopoly in the search for both platforms.