Apple has asked to join Google’s upcoming antitrust lawsuit, seeking to protect its lucrative search engine partnership worth an estimated $20 billion a year, according to court documents filed Monday in Washington.
THE iPhone The manufacturer stressed that it has no plans to develop its own search engine, regardless of the outcome of the trial. “Apple is committed to other areas of growth and has no desire to incur significant costs in an area of ​​significant risk,” the company said in its filing.
Apple argued that Google could no longer adequately represent Apple’s interests as it faced possible splitting measures. “Google must now defend itself against a broad effort to break up its business units,” Apple said in court papers.
The Justice Department’s lawsuit, which Google lost in August, could fundamentally reshape online search. Prosecutors are seeking solutions, including forcing Google to sell its Chromium browser and potentially its Android operating system restore competition in the market.
Google has proposed a solution, in which it says it would avoid exclusive deals, including the one with Apple, such as being the default search engine, in favor of not having to sell its Chrome browser in the process. antitrust in progress.
Apple defended the existing partnership, arguing that removing Google as a search option would harm consumers who “overwhelmingly prefer Google’s product.” The company further argued that including Google without compensation would create “a perverse market outcome” by giving the dominant search engine an unfair advantage.
The complaint comes as Apple seeks to protect what analysts say is almost pure profit from its partnership with Google, which represents about 16% of Apple’s operating profit for its fiscal year ended September.
The criminal phase of the case is scheduled for April, where Apple hopes to call witnesses to testify. The result could potentially end the revenue-sharing agreements that have made Google the default search engine on Apple’s Safari browser.