Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai openly said that Google paid Apple 36% of the search service’s revenue in the Safari browser.
The two giants have an agreement to keep Google as the default search engine in Safari. This was the forerunner to Google being sued by the US Department of Justice (DOJ).
Pichai testified in a separate lawsuit that Epic Games, maker of the popular game Fortnite, filed against Google.
An expert witness testifies in Google’s defense at a Washington DC trial. In the testimony, the expert revealed the figure of 36% that Google paid to Apple by mistake.
Epic’s lawyer then confirmed the truth to Pichai. “The testimony is true,” said Pichai, quoted from CNBC International, Thursday (16/11/2023).
Epic’s lawyers then accused Google of paying Samsung less than half the amount it paid to Apple. Regarding this, Pichai admitted that he did not know the exact figure, but it could be true.
Google is spending more than US$ 49 billion (Rp. 764 trillion) on its traffic acquisition budget (TAC) throughout 2022. This budget is to pay companies such as Apple and Samsung, in order to make Google’s search engine the default service.
Epic’s lawyers then pressured Pichai to reveal the exact numbers given to Apple. Initially Pichai answered more than US$ 10 billion (Rp. 156 trillion).
However, the lawyer rejected that statement and argued that the figure was actually $18 billion (Rp. 280 trillion).
Alphabet is being hit by a series of cases. Currently, there are two lawsuits filed by the DOJ in Virginia and Washington DC regarding Google’s monopoly strategy.
At the same time, Alphabet was also sued by Epic Games because it was deemed to be deliberately carrying out an illegal monopoly through the Google Play Store application store. Epic also sued Apple, but lost at trial last April.
Google, Samsung and Apple did not comment on Picahi’s latest testimony.
[Gambas:Video CNBC]
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