During the ongoing antitrust trial led by the US Department of Justice, testimony has surfaced that Google is paying Samsung Electronics a substantial sum each month to pre-install its Gemini AI app on Samsung devices. This strategy mirrors Google’s well-documented payments to Apple for its default search engine position, illustrating a trend of compensating major tech companies for the preferential placement of Google services—a practice that has come under legal scrutiny. These financial arrangements spotlight Google’s substantial market influence, especially following recent findings that assert Google maintains illegal monopolies in various sectors, including online advertising technology. Notably, it is widely recognized that Google compensates Apple significantly to secure its status as the default search engine on Safari.
This dominance has drawn criticism from the DOJ, which has labeled Google a bully, noting that it effectively sidelines competitors like Microsoft’s Bing. In 2022, Google reportedly paid Apple around $20 billion, which accounted for approximately 16.75 percent of Apple’s operating income during that year. This financial dynamic emphasizes how reliant Apple has become on Google’s revenue streams. The current situation concerning Samsung further exemplifies Google’s tactics.
Court testimonies have revealed that since January, Google has been channeling significant monthly payments to Samsung to ensure the pre-installation of Gemini on its devices. According to Peter Fitzgerald, Google’s vice president of platforms and device partnerships, this agreement is expected to continue for at least two years. It involves a fixed payment for each device bundled with the Gemini app and a share of revenue generated from in-app advertisements. This is not the first instance of Google compensating Samsung; similar financial arrangements have been in place to secure default search engine status on its devices.
Moreover, Google has been accused of exerting its control over the Android ecosystem, including a deal worth roughly $8 billion to keep Google Search, the Play Store, and Google Assistant as default options on Samsung devices from 2020 to 2023. The outcome of the DOJ’s ongoing investigation may lead to significant changes aimed at curbing Google’s influence in the online advertising space.
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