The UK’s regulatory action against Google could spell the beginning of the end for one of the most lucrative deals in technology: Google’s multi-billion-dollar pact to be the default search engine on Apple’s products. The proposed remedy of a mandatory “choice screen” strikes at the very heart of this arrangement.
This deal is a cornerstone of Google’s market dominance. Google pays Apple a huge sum—estimated to be billions annually—to ensure that Google is the pre-set search engine in the Safari browser on every iPhone, iPad, and Mac. This guarantees Google a massive volume of high-value search traffic.
A mandatory choice screen would make this deal far less valuable. If users are forced to actively choose their search engine when they first use Safari, many might choose an alternative, or even stick with Google, but the automatic, guaranteed traffic would be gone. Apple could no longer promise Google default status, and Google would have little reason to pay billions for a position that is no longer guaranteed.
This is a major threat to both companies’ bottom lines. Google would lose a significant and stable source of search queries, while Apple would lose a huge, high-margin revenue stream. This is why both companies have fought so hard against similar measures in other jurisdictions.
By targeting the effects of this deal, the CMA is trying to dismantle one of the key pillars that props up Google’s search monopoly. If successful, it could not only reshape the search market but also force a fundamental realignment of the commercial relationship between two of the world’s most powerful tech companies.