Google’s Search Default Deals Threatened by U.S. Antitrust Suit
- Tech giant pays Apple about $8 billion a year for placement
- DOJ says almost 60% of searches happen via these paid deals
Photographer: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg
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The Department of Justice filed its highly-anticipated antitrust case against Google Tuesday, focusing on payments Google makes to ensure its search engine is the default choice on millions of phones and computer internet browsers made by other companies.
The payments are a little-known part of how Google does business. Cutting them off could disrupt a long-standing status quo that helps Google but also provides significant revenue to other companies.