Google paid $26.3 billion to other companies to ensure its search engine was the default on web browsers and mobile phones, a top company executive testified during the Justice Department’s antitrust trial Friday.
The amount of payments Alphabet Inc.’s Google made to other companies for the default status — such as Apple Inc. for placement on the iPhone and other devices — has more than tripled since 2014, according to Prabhakar Raghavan, a senior executive responsible for both search and advertising.
Google’s search advertising brought in $146.4 billion in revenue in 2021, a number that has also climbed over the same years, Raghavan said. The payments for the default were the company’s biggest cost, he added.
Utterly bananas. Is it any wonder, then, that nobody can compete with Google? How are you supposed to compete as a search engine when Google shells the entire nominal GPD of Bosnia and Herzegovina every year to be the default everywhere where it matters? And that’s 2021 – who knows how much it is now!
Let’s look at the bright side: Open-source projects get funding from this. Canonical made a huge mistake by not slapping search bar on the Ubuntu desktop and even displaying results right on the desktop.
This is true. Firefox would certainly be in a sorry state if it wasn’t for Google’s funding
No, they didn’t.
kukrosdr,
Drumhellar,
Obviously I agree with kurkosdr that mozilla are dependent on google’s money, for better or worse. I also agree with you that Canonical was better off without it, in large part because they already had a billionaire onboard. Of all the flaws we could find with Ubuntu, I don’t think passing on google adware was one of them, haha. Although Ubuntu’s situation isn’t really typical, many FOSS projects are more desperate for external funding even if strings are attached.
Canonical did have a deal with Amazon.