Google appears scared.
The tech large actually needs individuals to make use of it as their default search engine — a lot in order that it may need been keen to pay for it.
According to the US v. Google federal antitrust trial in opposition to the corporate reported by CNBC, Google paid $26.3 billion to be the default search engine on net and cellular browsers in 2021. That’s the price of greater than two million Rolex watches. With $26 billion, you could possibly buy a number of skilled sports activities groups, fund vital scientific analysis tasks, or assist huge infrastructure improvement in a rustic. If you spent $1 per second, it could take you over 820 years to spend $26 billion.
The Verge did the maths and, in the event you have a look at how a lot cash Google makes in advert income, which might possible be one of many foremost causes to push it because the default search engine, the platform is spending 16 p.c of its search income and 29 p.c of its revenue to get this accomplished. Remarkably, $26.3 billion is simply 1.7 p.c of Google’s complete market cap. It’s additionally half of what Elon Musk purchased Twitter, now X, for, which appears like one other L for Musk.
It’s unclear how a lot cash Google paid particular corporations and companions to be the default search engine on its platforms, however CNBC reported that Apple possible acquired a reasonably large piece of the pie. Google may pay Apple as a lot as $19 billion, CNBC reported in a separate piece.
Google, in fact, would most likely have most well-liked these numbers to remain secret. Now everybody is aware of precisely how a lot their default settings are price — greater than three billion hen sandwiches from Popeyes.
