Google pays Apple to be the default search engine on Apple's Safari web browser on iPhones and Macs, which causes a "significant barrier to entry and expansion" for rivals in the search engine market, said the UK Competition and Markets Authority in a report released today (via
Reuters).
The relationship between Apple and Google impacts Microsoft's Bing, Verizon's Yahoo, and independent search engine DuckDuckGo. Apple allows users to set these search engines as their default in the Safari settings, a privilege the search engines pay for, but Google Search remains the default on a new device.
Apple received the "substantial majority" of the $1.5 billion (1.2 billion pounds) that Google paid to be the default search engine on various devices in the United Kingdom in 2019, according to the report.