Google will continue to be allowed to pay to be the default search engine on products including Apple’s Safari browser, a surprise decision following a recent US federal court ruling in an antitrust case.
Accordingly, Judge Amit Mehta affirmed that the search giant is not prohibited from paying partners to maintain the default position.
“A cutoff of Google payments would almost certainly cause significant harm. In some cases, it could be devastating to distribution partners, relevant markets, and consumers. This is contrary to a broad ban on payments,” Judge Amit Mehta wrote in the ruling.
Google and Apple’s roughly $20 billion deal allows the search engine to appear as the default on Safari, giving the company a huge advantage in traffic. Executives from Apple and Mozilla, which owns the Firefox browser, have both defended the partnership. Mozilla’s chief financial officer has said Firefox would likely not exist without Google’s funding.
In addition to allowing the payments to continue, the court also did not force Google to include a search engine choice screen on its products. This was part of a broader settlement that the Justice Department had proposed forcing the tech giant to divest from Chrome or Android. Instead, Google would have to share some search data with competitors.
Notably, Judge Mehta himself concluded last year that Google has a monopoly in online search and advertising, a decision that came after a trial on remedies.
The antitrust case against Google is seen as one of the most aggressive efforts by the US government to curb the power of big tech corporations. However, the new decision shows that the court has not accepted the Justice Department's most aggressive demands. This means that Google still retains strategic leverage in controlling the search market through distribution agreements with major partners such as Apple and Mozilla.
Source: https://znews.vn/google-thang-lon-post1582155.html
Comment (0)