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Comment by hintymad | Hacker News Reader

> On iOS the list of allowed search engines is simply baked into OS, we have a fiddly extension that hooks outbound calls to /search and redirects them but I wish we didn't need to.

Wouldn't this be the fault of Apple as it is Apple that controls the list?

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Apple could be getting paid off by google to keep this aspect of search difficult to change.

$20 billion in 2022 according to the verge via court docs: https://www.theverge.com/2024/5/2/24147007/google-paid-apple...

If these hypothetically had no impact on the rest of the business, and were just an arbitrary payment, they would be the difference between Google having more profit than Apple, and vice versa.

No, absolutely not -- that says nothing whatsoever about making the default difficult to change.

It's just about what the default is.

The “make search difficult to change” is more obviously anti trust worthy, and if they did make this deal I would not be surprised if they were careful to not write anything down.

(Not to mention google deleting chats against court orders)

sure, but every change away from that default means having the default is that much less valuable. So it sort of seems like it might make financial sense not devoting dev time to making it easy to switch.

That last part requires a nudge and a wink, just like those OEMs who didn't "need" to make it annoying as fuck to turn off secure boot under the terms of their contract with Microsoft but did it anyway because they knew what was good for them.

It "says nothing whatsoever" only if you fell off the turnip truck yesterday, or have a vested interest in defending a massive corporation.

When you are committing a crime, do you put it in writing, sign it and send it to a judge?

If the rate Google pays is in some way set per usage/rev-share, then Google is indeed paying to make the setting difficult to change.

> If the rate Google pays is in some way set per usage/rev-share

Rule number 1 of commiting a crime, is don’t create evidence and then sign it yourself and send it to lawyers

The deal with Google is not a fixed amount. It has a revenue component (ie a share of Google revenue from that user). So the motivation for Apple to make it difficult is clear - a user switching browser costs Apple money as it does not have revenue share deals with others

Important context is that massive sum of money Google pays for such exclusivity.

Google pays to be the default, not for exclusivity as evidenced by the list of SEs Apple provides to swap to.

I never knew what the hell Apple was doing with the extremely limited set of search engines with the only means to change it being to choose one of the others Apple has included on a static list which cannot be modified by the user.

It's because the only way to get on that list at all is to pay Apple (as revealed in this very case).

That's false.

Google paid Apple to be the default.

There is no reporting whatsoever that there is any other payment to be in the list of alternatives. There is no evidence that Microsoft pays Apple to include Bing in the list of alternatives.

So nothing whatsoever like that was revealed in the case.

Dude, given you don't have any evidence to the contrary, the correct response here is "wow, I hadn't heard of that, please tell me more", rather than to assume that if you haven't heard of something, it must be false.

I don't know why there was no reporting of this, but it is what Gabriel Wineberg testified to under oath. See the trial transcripts, 2023-09-21, 1:36pm[0].

> Q. And since this agreement was signed in 2014, DuckDuckGo has been one of the built in options that a user can select as their search engine in Safari, right?

> A. Yes.

> Q. DuckDuckGo agreed, through this service integration agreement, to pay Apple a share of the revenue that DuckDuckGo receives from certain search traffic originating from Safari, right?

> A. Yes.

You see how that is DDG paying for being in the list of alternatives, right? And that it was revealed in this case?

[0] https://thecapitolforum.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/2023....

Thanks for that, that's very interesting. And indeed, has had no reporting whatsoever as far as I can tell.

Do you know if Microsoft, Yahoo, and Ecosia also pay for placement? Since those are the other options Safari provides?

You're right, I shouldn't have said it was false -- I thought I'd followed this subject very closely, and this is definitely not common knowledge at all. I stand corrected, thanks.

I haven't seen any details on what arrangements the other search engines have, this only came up during the DDG testimony.

There is proof (not just evidence) that Google paid to be on the list. There is evidence that to be on that list, one needs to pay; therefore, there is evidence that Microsoft also paid to be there.

You think Ecosia pays any substantial money to Apple?

We don’t actually know that. I do sometimes wonder if that’s the case, but you shouldn’t state something as a fact without anything to back it up.

We actually know it. I told you how we know it, and you ignored it. If that wasn't enough for you, you could have asked for details rather than scold me about not providing tedious details on something that was public knowledge.

Anyway, I've provided said tedious details in a sibling comment.

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