2020 is not being a good year for Google. Regulators in the United States and Europe are targeting the company for monopolistic practices, and, that of Great Britain could force the breaking of the contract with Apple. Today Google is the default search engine in the Safari browser installed on Apple devices.
Apple benefits from most of the $ 1500 billion Google pays to include its search engine on UK devices, and this is considered by the competition regulator of that country as:
A significant barrier to entry and expansion for Google's rivals in the search engine market.
ECompetitors include none other than Microsoft Corp's Bing, Yahoo, operated by Verizon Communications Inc., and a friend from home; DuckDuckGo. They all pay Apple to appear as alternative search engines to Safari.
According to industry analysts, 80% of Apple's worldwide revenue not related to end-user sales comes from Google.
Among the alternatives thought by regulators There is a screen that allows you to choose the search engine or impose restrictions on the monetization of the default search engine.
Apple would abandon Google. What are the signs
Users who like to test beta versions of Apple products have found that Spotlight, the search app for Apple devices, no longer uses Google for its suggestions. Results are displayed as Siri Suggestions.
The other clue that Apple is working on its own search engine is the update to Applebot's About page. This is a website indexer used by Spotlight and Siri. In the beginning it only worked with Apple sites, but now this page provides complete information for webmasters to optimize their site to be indexed.
The third indication comes from job offers posted from Cupertino and focused on search engine specialists with knowledge of artificial intelligence.
What does it mean to us?
When the European Union forced Microsoft to give the possibility of choosing a browser in Windows, many of us thought that this would increase the market share of Firefox. Unfortunately, it only increased the share of Google Chrome giving Google a dominant position like Microsoft never had. And, anyway, it is likely that if British regulators have their way, people will still choose Google.
But, things would be even worse if Apple develops its own search engine.
Some of the consequences would be:
- More complete integration with the operating system and other Apple services such as iCloud.
- Better positioning in the search results of Apple products or of those companies that pay Apple for a better positioning.
Suppose someone is looking for a comedy to watch on the weekend. The first results will be sure those of the comedies available on Apple TV +. In the same way, if someone writes an article with a negative review of their products, the company has the power to remove it from the results.
En Linux Adictos We had already covered the complaints from various companies about Apple's monopolistic practices. I recounted the cases of Basecamp, a productivity tools developer whose email app was removed from the app store because he refused to use Apple's payment service for subscriptions. On the European side, Spotify and Kobe, direct competitors for Apple services, complained about anti-competitive practices.
Some time later, David told us about the Telegram developers' complaints to the European regulatory authorities. In this case, in addition to the excessive commissions, they highlighted the mandatory delivery of user data, the impossibility of downloading software from other sources and the arbitrariness of the application in the policies in the application store.
In other words, an Apple search engine to replace Google's would leave Guatemala to fall into Guatemala. At least there's a reason to be glad I don't have the money to buy one of your devices.
The competition is good, and I am not surprised at anything coming from the Manzanita company.