Microsoft has discussed selling its Bing search engine to Apple, but the talks never got beyond the preliminary stages. Bloomberg the report said.
The deal will allow Apple to use Bing to replace Alphabet’s Google as the default search engine for Apple products. Details on exactly when the negotiations took place or the price discussed have not yet been reported.
News of the talks comes as top executives from Microsoft, Google and Apple take the stand in a historic antitrust trial that lifts the curtain on search bar scrutiny at the highest levels of big tech companies. The federal government sued Google for allegedly abusing its dominant position in the search market.
Microsoft declined to comment wealth Alphabet and Apple did not respond to requests for comment about the talks.
In 2014, Google and Apple signed a deal that gave Google prime real estate on all Apple screens.The deal’s value has only been hinted at in ongoing trial testimony and has never been disclosed, but investment firm Bernstein estimate Apple’s net profit is expected to reach about $19 billion this year.
Microsoft launched Bing in 2009 but failed to gain a significant foothold in the search market, where Google holds an estimated 90% share.
Testimony in Google’s antitrust case included a Microsoft executive admitting that Apple only viewed Microsoft as a “bargaining chip” when negotiating with Google over search issues. Mikhail Parakhin, Microsoft’s head of advertising and online services, explained that the threat that Apple could switch to Bing gives it enough leverage to continue to get more payments from Google. When he said: “It’s no secret that Apple makes more money with existing Bing than Bing does.”
The Apple-Google agreement, first signed in 2002, requires both companies split net income Alphabet recovered the funds, generated by a Google search on Apple devices.It was revealed that Alphabet paid Apple $8 billion to $12 billion in transaction fees in 2020 estimate This information was revealed at the outset of the Justice Department investigation.
The 2016 contract renewal included a new clause that would go into effect if one of the two companies was sued by the government, as is now happening at Google. according to Testimony from Apple executives. The provision, known as a “joint defense” provision, requires the two companies to defend each other in the face of government investigations. Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of services and one of the executives involved in the negotiations, said the clause was inserted at Google’s request.
Google antitrust case makes talks to sell Bing more important
Google’s current antitrust case against its search dominance makes Bing’s revelations all the more timely. One of Alphabet’s main strategies to ensure its leadership is to sign deals with companies like Apple and Samsung to prominently display its search engine on their devices.
In April, Samsung considered switching to Bing, which sent Google into a “panic.” However, a few months later Samsung suspended the internal review, according to arrive wall street journal. The move saves Google from losing a major technology partner and prevents Bing from making further inroads into the search market.
Analysts believe that Google’s current antitrust lawsuit is one of the most significant legal challenges in the history of the technology industry since the government sued Microsoft in 1998. Government lawyers are trying to cast the current lawsuit as a defining moment for the role of technology among consumers. ‘ life.
“This case is about the future of the Internet and whether Google’s search engine will face meaningful competition,” said Kenneth Dintzer, the Justice Department’s chief litigator.
Much of the trial will hinge precisely on the types of deals Alphabet signed with companies like Samsung and Apple, and whether they helped Google gain an unfair advantage over its rivals.
“Google’s contract ensures that competitors cannot match the monetization of search premium ads, especially on mobile,” Dinzel said. “Through this feedback loop, this wheel has been turning for more than 12 years. It has always turned out to be an advantage for Google.”
Google claims it does have competitors in search. The company said it faces competition from traditional search engines such as Bing and other online platforms such as Yelp and Amazon, where consumers can obtain more professional information.
“There are many ways for users to access the Web beyond the default search engine, and people use them all the time,” Williams & Connolly lawyer John Schmidtlein, who represents Google, said during the trial.
The original lawsuit was filed by the Justice Department in 2020, meaning the case spanned two presidential administrations. U.S. Judge Amit Mehta is due to rule in a 10-week trial early next year. If Alphabet is found to have violated the law, another trial will determine possible penalties against the company.
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