This doesn't seem like a real problem considering users can choose DDG on iOS and macOS, or pick another browser. If Apple only allowed Google Search, then it would be a problem. Or if an Android OS only allowed GS or Edge only allowed Bing, then it would similarly be a problem too.
Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search business
131–140 of 388 posts
Re: Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search business
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
How so? What Apple services are impossible or impractical to switch away from? Inconvenient? Could be. Note a drop-in replacement? Sure, that's why there are different companies.
iMessage, Apple Watch... iCloud?
iMessage: WhatsApp, Signal, SMS etc. No One uses iMessage outside of the US, alternatives are very good and available on all platforms. You don't lose access to your social circle by switching away from iMessage.
Apple Watch: Just another device that has numerous alternatives. Many excel in some way, not crappy alternatives.
iCould: There are numerous alternatives, free and paid and work very well.
So, if you like to get rid of Apple, you simply tell the people you care that they can reach you from WhatsApp or your favourite alternative. Buy the new device, follow the transfer data and setting instructions, erase your iPhone&watch, give them away or sell them and you are done.
Re: Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search business
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
That would be a very clear anti-trust violation where they would be abusing position in the OS market to influence their position in the search market.
That only applies when you dealing with markets with an absence of competition. For example, Microsoft had ~95% market share of the entire computing market when they tried to embrace and extinguish Netscape. It's why it was perfectly fine for Google to use its web services to influence competition within the Android OS market.
Anti-trust law is not simple. In the case of MSFT and IE they were accused under the protects of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act[1] of using their monopoly position (Windows) to reduce consumer choice (bundling IE without letting users pick a different option). In the case of Apple and Google, it's more likely to fall under the Clayton Antitrust Act[2] as it's a matter of corporations collaborating to reduce consumer choice (but I am not a lawyer, and not even American, so I could be waaaay off the mark here.)
[1] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/sherman-antiturst-act.a...
[2] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/clayton-antitrust-act.a...
Re: Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search business
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is there a way to run a profitable search engine without relying on advertising? Ex: Cloud search - https://aws.amazon.com/cloudsearch/
https://kagi.com/ has plans for subscriptions, I hope that they will have product worth paying for. I spend enough time and effort searching that paying 50$/month[0] would make sense if it would get me clearly superior tool. [0] for reference, I pay 250$/month for place where I live (in Poland).
I've been using kagi after requesting an invite, which is something I usually don't even bother doing. Mostly because I'm extremely disappointed by queries not matching my search terms in all major engines - so I have essentially nowhere else to go.
It's ok so far. Looking at only search (ignoring the "lenses" and listicle-like content) I cannot say it's objectively better than using searx with filtering. At least not dramatically better that I would notice. It is however much better in returning results that actually contain my search terms.
For 600$ a year, it would need to offer full-text regex search and/or exact logical operators with controllable approximation (agrep-style).
I would instantly pay 5/mo$ already though, as long as it stays BS free, and doesn't use past search results to refine further queries. Search bubble is an issue in every single service where this is being used, and I'd like my search engine to be totally exempt from it, and/or have exact control over it.
Re: Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search business
#135This would be under criminal law in the US, right? Basically jail time for the executives if it is true.
Re: Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search business
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
The alternative option seems to be that Apple is for some reason required to use their position to enter the search market. Why is that the alternative? No one is saying Apple have to provide their own search engine; people are suggesting Mac products should give the user a clear choice. A much more obvious alternative is that Apple (or any OS provider for that matter) shouldn't be able to sell the default search eng…
It is easy to change, it a dropdown in Safari settings, very easy to find. I agree though that Google pays Apple billions to be the default stinks. Even though in this case Apple greed aligns perfectly with user expectation.
It only allows, on my phone anyways, google bing yahoo and DuckDuckGo. I’m not sure if this changes with region but I don’t see Yandex or Baidu or a few other less popular ones. So why doesn’t apple just allow any engine? So yes it is easy to change for a few select engines. If you jailbreak you can add others.
Re: Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search business
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
> "Google pays Apple to be the default search provider" If that is the case they might not act anti-competetive but, rumours are [0] Apple received up to $20Bn per year in this deal. It is hard to believe that this payment is just for being the default search engine. I strongly suspect that Apple also agrees to not build their own search engine as long as this deal is on - and if that is the case, there will be a str…
Where is that [0] reference? Because it is not $20B, but $10 / $12B. The range was partly confirmed during a trial where Google mentioned their percentage of profits paying to Apple as being default search engine.
Sorry, my bad I forgot to add the [0] reference: https://www.macrumors.com/2021/08/27/google-could-pay-apple-...
(repeating that this is an analyst estimate/rumour so take it with a grain of salt).
Re: Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search business
#138This would be under criminal law in the US, right? Basically jail time for the executives if it is true.
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Re: Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search business
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
> "Google pays Apple to be the default search provider" If that is the case they might not act anti-competetive but, rumours are [0] Apple received up to $20Bn per year in this deal. It is hard to believe that this payment is just for being the default search engine. I strongly suspect that Apple also agrees to not build their own search engine as long as this deal is on - and if that is the case, there will be a str…
> It is hard to believe that this payment is just for being the default search engine. I strongly suspect that Apple also agrees to not build their own search engine as long as this deal is on In practical terms, if Apple launched a search engine that wasn’t the default, would it see much uptake? It seems to me that Google don’t need an agreement for that.
No, but building a search engine doesn't happen overnight. They could launch it, and after 2-3 years of user feedback and testing, make the default configuration switch and cancelling the contract with Google.
Re: Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search business
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you sure that 200 usd is worldwide? Seems like US only
The number is higher in the US and lower in the rest of the world. But iPhones are more heavily skewed to US users. I picked $200 as a good ballpark.
True, and iPhones are also more common in wealthier people. Worked on a Project once where our target audience was medical doctors in Germany, and we had >50% iOS users on based our user-agent metrics.