The 36% Deal: Inside Google’s Payments to Apple for Safari Search Revenues

Google gives Apple 36 percent of ad revenue generated from Google searches on Apple’s Safari browser, as per Kevin Murphy, an economics professor at the University of Chicago during his testimony for Alphabet at the Justice Department trial in Washington, Bloomberg reported. The relationship between the tech giants has been under scrutiny, with the DOJ accusing Google of maintaining market dominance by paying Apple to be the default search engine on Safari. In 2021, Google reportedly paid Apple “around $18 billion” for this. Both Google and Apple objected to details of their arrangement being made public, with Google claiming it would undermine its competitive standing. With Google’s total revenue in 2022 at $279.8 billion, and a majority from advertising, the 36 percent share to Apple likely amounts to billions of dollars. Google and Apple did not respond to Engadget’s request for comment.