The investigation launched by American regulators against Google Corporation, which is suspected of abusing its position in the search engine market, may lead to a revision of existing agreements with partners, including Apple. At the risk of losing tens of billions of dollars in Google’s annual royalties, Apple is now ready to defend its interests in court.
Image source: Unsplash, Stephen Phillips
At least, this was reported by Reuters this week. As already noted in the investigation materials, in 2022 alone, Apple received approximately $20 billion from Google for using the latter’s search engine as the default profile tool. According to Reuters, legal representatives of Apple have filed a petition with the court for their participation in the upcoming hearing in the Google case, since the first of the companies is not sure that the second will be able to effectively protect the interests of its partner.
According to Apple representatives, the company does not intend to create its own search engine to compete with Google, regardless of the continuation of payments from the latter or their termination by a court decision. Accordingly, Apple depends on Google in this area not only financially, but also purely technically. Apple is ready to provide evidence to the court. According to the company, Google is now facing pressure to split its business, and in such conditions cannot adequately represent Apple’s interests. For this reason, the latter is forced to insist on the presence of its own representatives in court.