Alphabet’s Google paid $26.3 billion to other corporations in 2021 to make sure its search engine was the default on web browsers and mobile phones, a top company executive testified through the Justice Department’s antitrust trial, Bloomberg News reported Friday.
The quantity of payments Google made for the default status has greater than tripled since 2014, in accordance with senior executive Prabhakar Raghavan who’s liable for each search and promoting, the report added.
Google’s revenue from search promoting got here in at $146.4 billion in 2021, while the payments for the default setting were its biggest cost, Raghavan was mentioned as saying within the Bloomberg report.
Google declined to comment on the testimony when contacted by Reuters.
The corporate has argued the revenue share agreements are legal and that it has invested to maintain its search and promoting businesses competitive.
It has also argued that if individuals are dissatisfied with defaults that they will, and do, switch to a different search provider.
Google had objected to revealing the numbers, saying they’d harm the corporate’s ability to barter contracts in the longer term.
Judge Amit Mehta, who’s overseeing the case, ruled that the numbers ought to be disclosed, the report added.
