Google Has Paid A Hefty Amount To Apple
Google is liable to pay a massive amount to Apple to keep its search bar on iPhones.
Alphabet Inc. has decided to pay a hefty amount to Apple Inc. to keep its search bar on the Apple iPhone- the company’s flagship smartphone.
The iPhone maker got $1 billion from its competitor back in FY14 as per the transcript of the proceedings at court from the copyright lawsuit by Oracle Corp against the search engine giant. GOOG has an agreement with Apple that gives them a percentage of the profits they make on Apple products.
Speculations regarding the amount paid by Google to Apple to be present on the iPhones have been circulating since a couple of years. However, the companies have never come upfront to discuss the matter. A spokeswoman at Apple, Ms. Kristin Huguet along with Mr. Aaron Stein, the Google spokesman has both declined to register any comments about the information revealed during the proceedings.
The agreement regarding revenue sharing highlights the length Google needs to go to make sure the search bar is not removed from the device. It also talks about how Apple is financially taking advantage of the advertisement business model of Google. Ironically, Mr. Tim Cook considers it to be interference in consumer privacy.
Oracle has been battling out with Google since FY10 with claims that the search engine giant made use of Java software without making any payments to Oracle whilst developing Android. The rundown has finally made its way to the United States where William Alsup, the District Attorney belonging to San Francisco is supposed to take over the lawsuit where Google initially lost the petition to derail the case earlier. The damages demanded by Oracle may now go beyond $1 billion since it has now also taken new Android variants into consideration.
Annette Hurst, the Oracle attorney who disclosed details of the Google-Apple agreement at last week’s court hearing, said a Google witness questioned during pretrial information said that “at one point in time the revenue share was 34 percent.” It wasn’t clear from the transcript whether that percentage is the amount of revenue kept by Google or paid to Apple.
An Attorney who is in favor of Google has registered his reservations against the data being disclosed and has also pleaded the judge to slash the 34% mention from the record.
According to Robert Van Nest, a renowned lawyer, “That percentage just stated, that should be sealed.” He further added, “We are talking hypotheticals here. That’s not a publicly known number.”
The judge who was responsible to preside the hearing refused to block the highly sensitive information from public viewing. Thus, the request by Google was not entertained. Later, Google demanded Alsup to “seal and redact the transcription”. The company claimed that the disclosure could affect the ability to come up with negotiations on similar issues with other companies. Apple sided Google on the matter.
“The specific financial terms of Google’s agreement with Apple are highly sensitive to both Google and Apple,” claimed Google. “Both Apple and Google have always treated this information as extremely confidential.”
