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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

#361

Post by pwinnski »

ipaddr wrote: post #305
pwinnski wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have eight options available to me in mobile safari other than using bookmarks to use any search engine that exists. It is easy to conceive of reasons why a company would not want to enable native UI elements to rely on external services without having vetted those services or established a relationship with them for recourse in the event of issues. It is harder--though not impossible--to conceive of ways to avoid…

That doesn't make sense. Why would someone who knows how to find a different search engine, change the setting be part of the group of people who are new or otherwise clueless? Apple should provide the option.

Are you kidding?

I have to assume you're not trolling, and really can't conceive of an entire large category of people who might, in response to a Facebook post, follow step-by-step instructions to change their default search engine without understanding the ramifications thereof, or how to change it back.

There are more people in that category than in the category of people who change their default search engine for good reason, knowing that it may deliver a less-optimal experience than Google under some circumstances.

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

#362

Post by dwaite »

malwrar wrote: post #128
nikanj wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every customization option means more complaints from some customer who managed to mess up that setting. “My search no longer works!” “Sir you have the search registry key set to ‘turkey bake time’” “Well that’s what I was searching for, and then the search stopped working completely. iPhones are the worst, I’m gonna tell all my friends”

I’m sure Apple’s world-renowned UX team can innovate a way to allow new search engines to be added w/o bricking your phone. I’d rather have that than lack if real, capital-laden competition in search.

It is likely more that the Safari team anticipates non-scrupulous companies taking advantage of an option to add a default search engine inline. Things like modal prompting and site-specified explanatory text are exploited these days.

Likely the best bet would be a web extension manifest value to expose a potential search engine. That would mean on iOS that you still need to publish an app for your search engine option to show up.

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

#363

Post by 6510 »

throwawayboise wrote: post #343
6510 wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was quite shocked when I discovered that some people with deep pockets think of ads as product information. Their behavior is entirely the opposite of ours. They click on all of them and buy stuff just to be sure they are not missing out. I on the other hand click 1 banner per year and I click search ads if I'm searching for that specific product. If I block ads on all pages except search (where I use them) google…

I'm not sure I believe that. People with deep pockets (unless they got that way via inheritance, winning the lottery, etc) typically got that way by being smart about money, not FOMO.

Yes, born rich.

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

#364

Post by dwaite »

beefield wrote: post #314
nikanj wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every customization option means more complaints from some customer who managed to mess up that setting. “My search no longer works!” “Sir you have the search registry key set to ‘turkey bake time’” “Well that’s what I was searching for, and then the search stopped working completely. iPhones are the worst, I’m gonna tell all my friends”

Well, well. I just realized. I think that apple sets by default that IOS Safari can't use location services without going into settings. Which for a really significant chunk (majority?) of iphone users mean that any web app using location services is "broken"[1]. Which of course means that for those folks web apps are not a thing, but they go and buy an app in the app store. Well played. (#ssholes.) [1] Due to circum…

Safari is not privileged in terms of location access [1], so the user both has to let Safari have access to location information and let Safari share that location information with a site.

If the user rejected Safari's access to location, sites also will also not get location data. However, Safari has asked me for access the first time on several phone installs, so I believe Safari not having location services is still a user choosing to limit platform access at some point during setup or on demand in Safari.

Unfortunately the public often does not trust even the platform vendor with location access. I somewhat blame Google for leading the public narrative to that point - but it is admittedly a very easy topic to fearmonger about.

(Said as someone who often has to restore location access to Apple and Google maps on family members' phones as part of troubleshooting issues)

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

#365

Post by dwaite »

netcan wrote: post #90
dpark wrote: 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…

> So, the deal essentially ensures that Apple will not compete.

To be clear, Apple does have search and does sell advertising for it. https://searchads.apple.com

They also attempt to summarize information when you do a system-level or browser-bar search. When the search shows me the local weather or a flight status or gives me a summary and direct link to Wikipedia as I type, they are taking that engagement from Google.

What Apple hasn't shown interest in so far is being a general-purpose internet search engine.

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

#366

Post by dwaite »

6510 wrote: post #306
dontblink wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd imagine at some point depriving sites of revenue will lead to adversarial outcomes where many if not all will simply refuse to load. So if ad blockers become mainstream it will be interesting change to the web.

I was quite shocked when I discovered that some people with deep pockets think of ads as product information. Their behavior is entirely the opposite of ours. They click on all of them and buy stuff just to be sure they are not missing out. I on the other hand click 1 banner per year and I click search ads if I'm searching for that specific product. If I block ads on all pages except search (where I use them) google…

At least some ad views have to convert to sales or companies would have long ago given up on the advertising medium.

It is hard to imagine someone who went through the age of Flash-based ads not looking at all injected advertisements with a sense of utter scorn, though. The split between content provider and advertising marketplace otherwise seems to mean that both consider the end user to only be valued in terms of their eyeballs.

I suspect it is because for some people, the advertisements actually are on-point and represent things they might be interested in.

I still find direct advertisement arrangements - such as temporarily co-branding a gaming site with a launching game, having a podcast talk about sponsors' products - to be much more on point.

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

#367

Post by nikitaga »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #159
nikitaga wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 Appl…

No, MSFT (and others) failed at mobile because there is no amount of money you can invest to break into that industry anymore, due to all the moat the duopoly has built up. It's literally impossible. Google started early and got on the last train with Android. Windows phone started when iOS App Store already had ~300K apps, and Play store had ~100K apps. That was a couple years too late. The duopoly was always an order of magnitude ahead of MSFT, and in this kind of market that's what matters.

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

#368

Post by dwaite »

ascagnel_ wrote: post #299
fshbbdssbbgdd wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think Apple would want to make itself the default. That would just invite all kinds of regulatory scrutiny, and would conflict with their pro privacy image. They did it for other markets where they do compete - maps most notably.

Maps was different, I believe. Google wanted substantial concessions from Apple for them to continue using Google Maps (and to build out new features like turn-by-turn navigation), Apple balked, and Apple Maps was born.

My understanding was this happened during contract renewal for Apple's access to Google Maps and YouTube. This was back when Apple wrote the apps and had them preinstalled.

For Maps specifically, Google wanted Apple to

- push users to log into their Google account

- sharing location data upstream to Google

Supposedly, Google had withheld new feature access from Apple until they got location data reported upstream - turn by turn and vector tiles in particular hurt, as their absence made maps have a limited feature set and use significantly more bandwidth.

The buzz at the time made it sound like Google was still in negotiations when Apple announced at WWDC that they would be using their own maps. They were pretty much blindsided - one of the reasons it took a while before a Google Maps app actually launched for iOS.

Apple likely just decided to launch the product early. The quality of that early launch and how it was handled publicly (along with other internal disputes) is supposedly why Forstall was shown the door.

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

#369

Post by fsflover »

zepto wrote: post #351
fsflover wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did not suggest that an article in Guardian means everybody agrees with that. In this case, Apple themselves agree that the iOS platform is closed for many things.

Yes you did. You posted it as evidence of this statement you made: >> However everyone agrees that Apple created a walled garden which is hard to escape. Apple agrees it’s closed in some ways. Far from ‘everyone’ thinks it’s hard to escape.

In my opinion, everybody who doesn't think it's hard to escape did not research Apple well enough. I showed you (some) evidence that it's a closed ecosystem. You could show me something suggesting it's not, if you are so sure.

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

#370

Post by Volker_W »

pdpi wrote: post #60
sfe22 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure that 200 usd is worldwide? Seems like US only

At 10 cents per ad print, that’s only 2000 impressions, around 6 per day. Certainly sounds in the higher side of feasible. If the deal is for $20B, break even is a tenth that though, so there’s a lot of margin for error while still claiming enormous financial benefits.

> 10 cents per ad print

Source?

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