Google could lose a third of its business if the courts force it to relinquish its default search deal for Apple’s Safari. It could lose the same thing if Apple voluntarily switches to AI-driven search services from other parties, including Apple itself.
There is no doubt that Google will be the biggest casualty if US courts force it to stop paying Apple roughly $20b a year to be included as the default search engine in Safari. That’s bad news for Apple, but given that Google currently pays Apple 36% of search ads revenue generated by searches via the Apple browser, it’s existentially grim news for Google. It’s doubtful a company seeing its revenue savaged in such a way can easily survive — at least, not in its present form.
The outcome for Apple is also grim, though perhaps not quite so existentially challenging. Sure, Apple may find itself short of a hugely damaging $20b it is used to receiving from Google, but it still has options, including the creation of its own search service based on the huge quantity of data it has gathered using its own Applebot across the years.
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