Oracle’s lawsuit against Google is starting to reveal a lot about Google’s business including a Google-Apple search bar deal worth $1 billion dollars. According to public transcripts, Google entered an agreement with Apple in 2014 to be the default search bar in iOS. The agreement was a revenue sharing agreement which means Google likely made much more than $1 billion while being the default search bar. This disclosed information shines a light on just how much user data is valued and how much money can be had from all of that data.
Oracle’s attorney, Annette Hurst, noted in court last week that an unnamed Google witness interviewed during pretrial proceedings said, “at one point in time the revenue share was 34 percent.” Bloomberg was unable to gather whether the percentage reflects the share Google keeps or pays to Apple.
Google lawyers attempted to strike Hurst’s statements regarding the 34 percent amount from the official record, but was rebuffed by presiding Judge William Alsup. A subsequent filing requested the transcript be sealed and redacted as the information could prove detrimental in negotiating terms with other companies. Apple made a separate filing asking the same.
Although Apple doesn’t monetize their services by using the gathered data to sell ads, it is curious that Apple’s Tim Cook admonishes services like Google for mining your data but is quick to take that same companies $1 billion dollars earned from that data on Apple devices. Perhaps Cook is taking the “see no evil, hear no evil” approach? I think we’ve only just begun to see some of the information the Oracle lawsuit is going to reveal. Stay tuned for much more and when we have it, we’ll be sure to share it here.
What do you think of the Google-Apple search bar deal? Let us know in the comments below or on Google+, Facebook and Twitter.
[button link=”http://appleinsider.com/articles/16/01/21/google-paid-apple-1b-in-2014-to-serve-default-ios-search-bar” icon=”fa-external-link” side=”left” target=”blank” color=”285b5e” textcolor=”ffffff”]Source: Apple Insider[/button]Last Updated on January 23, 2017.
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