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Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search business

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Re: Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search business

#151
Perhaps Apple has a slight bit of self reflection and just realises that after the catastrophe that was Apple Maps that they'd be no good at making a search engine?

They have no in-house expertise and the small scale search products they do make are very, very bad.

Re: Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search business

#152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm so happy that Apple keeps me safe of dangerous search engines. /s I don't get this logic, honestly. What is the point of not being able to add any and all search engines to Apple?

Apple hates any sort of technical customization in their mass-market products. They always have, and keep stripping them down to the most dumbed-down settings screens they can figure out while still allowing the bare necessities (which they apparently don't consider adding an alternative search engine to be). I don't like this approach, but it is very consistent in their products, features tend to disappear over time…

I don't agree entirely. I'm able to control my privacy settings to an, for an Android user's standpoint, absurd level of detail. In addition I can fiddle with so many settings hidden and tucked away quite nicely on my iPhone. In addition, I'm only able to shut down JavaScript in Safari - and more, while not being able to do so in Firefox Focus. Options like that are counter-intuitive if you ask me. This argument is very convenient for any options that are against them. But if they're so consistent, than I wouldn't be able to control my privacy settings to such a degree, because it'll confuse users and can be just as annoying if set incorrectly.

Re: Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search business

#153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am test driving Kagi and was very suprised to learn that on Firefox I appear to need a plugin/extension to add it as a default search engine. Blew my mind. Maybe I am missing something.

That's not the case for me. Firefox 95.0.2 for Linux, using Kagi as my default, and I have neither a Kagi plugin nor an extension installed.

Please tell me how ( I don't want the extension ).

I go to preferences -> search. Then to 'Default search engine', which gives me a combo which gives me Google/Bing/eBay/Wikipedia. But I can not add anything to the combo.

Further down, there is 'One-Click Search Engines' which contain the same options. No button to add one. Below is a 'Find more search engines' link which leads me to the plugins page.

Re: Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search business

#154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not the case for me. Firefox 95.0.2 for Linux, using Kagi as my default, and I have neither a Kagi plugin nor an extension installed.

Please tell me how ( I don't want the extension ). I go to preferences -> search. Then to 'Default search engine', which gives me a combo which gives me Google/Bing/eBay/Wikipedia. But I can not add anything to the combo. Further down, there is 'One-Click Search Engines' which contain the same options. No button to add one. Below is a 'Find more search engines' link which leads me to the plugins page.

Not op, but if you go to kagi.com and look in the search bar (edit: Firefox's own built in search bar) you'll see a little green plus over the magnifying glass. Click it and you'll see an option to add it to the search engine list.

Re: Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search business

#155
post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, so when I type something into the Safari search bar on iOS, it gives me Apple-sourced suggestions from the web, even though I have "Search Engine Suggestions" turned off (because I don't want my URL typing history leaking to a search engine). That qualifies as "already in the search business" IMO.

> That qualifies as "already in the search business" IMO. Well they are definitely in the search business anyway, as >20% of Apple's annual revenue is from search. It's just that all the revenue apple makes from search comes directly from Google in the form of a $20bn payment, and Google powers almost all their actual web searches (i.e. not instant suggestions), so I think it's hardly an independent 'search business'…

I'm honestly not seeing the difference you're drawing between "web searches" and "instant suggestions".

If I type some characters into a search box, and the phone displays the title and domain of a website that it thinks I might be looking for, that counts as a "web search" to me. iOS Safari does that using an Apple-powered web index.

But whatever.

Re: Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search business

#156
post #90
post #17

”The complaint claims that the means used to effectuate the non-compete agreement included; (1) Google would share it's search profits with Apple; (2) Apple would give preferential treatment to Google for all Apple devices; (3) regular secret meetings between the executives of both companies; (4) annual multi-billion-dollar payments by Google to Apple not to compete in the search business; (5) suppression of the comp…

They're not required to enter the search market. But, the revenue Apple get from the deal/trust with Google is better than MSFT or Yahoo ever got by competing with them. It's also easy, risk free and pure profit. So, the deal essentially ensures that Apple will not compete. Apple now also have an interest in maintaining their (alleged) trust. It's now in both parties interest to maintain Google's dominance of the spa…

> If Apple couldn't make money by funneling user to Google, they might prefer to just suppress ads.

Apple did implement content blockers to block ads. I do not see ads when I use Safari in iOS or macOS.

Re: Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search business

#157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please tell me how ( I don't want the extension ). I go to preferences -> search. Then to 'Default search engine', which gives me a combo which gives me Google/Bing/eBay/Wikipedia. But I can not add anything to the combo. Further down, there is 'One-Click Search Engines' which contain the same options. No button to add one. Below is a 'Find more search engines' link which leads me to the plugins page.

Not op, but if you go to kagi.com and look in the search bar (edit: Firefox's own built in search bar) you'll see a little green plus over the magnifying glass. Click it and you'll see an option to add it to the search engine list.

Thank you!

Re: Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search business

#158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm so happy that Apple keeps me safe of dangerous search engines. /s I don't get this logic, honestly. What is the point of not being able to add any and all search engines to Apple?

Apple hates any sort of technical customization in their mass-market products. They always have, and keep stripping them down to the most dumbed-down settings screens they can figure out while still allowing the bare necessities (which they apparently don't consider adding an alternative search engine to be). I don't like this approach, but it is very consistent in their products, features tend to disappear over time…

One incentive for them doing this is that they have to provide support and if they let everyone use random search engines that deliver malware etc. They end up having to pay their "geniuses" more to un-crud peoples infested machines.

Re: Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search business

#159
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making more money by selling less implies large margins and I don't think that having better margins than the competitors says anything about being a monopoly. Actually, it means that their customers are so happy with the Apple product that they are willing to pay a premium to have it. Apple's large margins are merely an opportunity that no one was able to fetch. You can verify that people are not paying Apple more b…

> I don't think that having better margins than the competitors says anything about being a monopoly. > Apple's large margins are merely an opportunity that no one was able to fetch. In a functioning free market, competitors would have picked up the slack long ago (iPhone is 14 years old now), and cashed in on those high profit margins too. Now, you can choose to believe that literally every multi billion dollar tech…

> Now, you can choose to believe that literally every multi billion dollar tech company in the world is so stupid and incompetent as to be unable to replicate Apple's "premium user experience" to capture similar profit margins, or you can look for simpler explanations, that inevitably generalize as anti-competitive practices.

The simpler explanation is they are not willing to invest the cash needed to create the Apple premium user experience.

See Microsoft pulling the plug on Windows phone and Microsoft stores. They decided to rest on their laurels (licensing fees for Excel almost pure profit and Azure rather than plow tens of billions into creating quality hardware and software and a retail experience for customers.

Re: Lawsuit filed alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search business

#160
post #111

Earlier 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.

It’s proportional to Google ad revenue, which has grown a lot since 2020
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