Washington [US], September 3: A ruling in the U.S. search antitrust case against Alphabet's (GOOGL.O), opens new tab Google on Tuesday is a win for mobile phone manufacturers including Apple (AAPL.O), opens new tab and Samsung (005930.KS), opens new tab, who a judge said Google can keep paying to be the default search engine on new devices.
Google has said it will file an appeal in the case, meaning the ruling is not likely to take effect immediately.
APPLE
The iPhone maker supported requiring Google to share its search data with artificial intelligence competitors such as OpenAI, Anthropic, Perplexity, and said it plans to offer more AI-driven options in search.
Apple recently saw a decrease for the first time in the number of Google search queries coming from its Safari browser compared to a year prior, the company said in May.
But cutting off payments to Apple that have reached $20 billion annually would only enrich Google and cut into Apple's development budget, since there are no other good options to offer as the default, Apple argued.
SAMSUNG
The South Korean smartphone maker also opposed ending Google's payments - and prosecutors' bid to extend the prohibition to Google's AI app, Gemini.
Stopping that funding would hurt Samsung's ability to compete with the more profitable Apple, which the Justice Department has separately accused of monopolizing U.S. smartphone markets, the company said. Such a move could even push Samsung to exit the U.S. mobile phone market, as Microsoft (MSFT.O), opens new tab, Amazon (AMZN.O), opens new tab and LG Corp (003550.KS), opens new tab have done over the past decade, it said.
The handset maker further argued that its most recent agreements with Google are not exclusive and do not hamper competition from AI competitors.
Source: Fijian Broadcasting Corporation
