In the recent court lawsuit against the US Department of Justice for violating the market monopoly with its search engine, in addition to revealing that MicrosoftPlanned to sell Bing Search to Apple, thereby becoming the default search service for iOS devices. Court documents also showed that Google had paid nearly $100 billion a year to make Google Search the default search engine service for Apple and Samsung devices.
Patrick Chang, former head of Samsung Next, Samsung's venture capital armdisplayGoogle and Samsung signed an agreement to make Google Search the default search engine for Samsung phones, while also preventing other search engines from becoming other search service options for Samsung phones.
According to Patrick Chang, during his time at Samsung, he was primarily responsible for identifying startups with investment value. At the time, he planned to add services provided by Branch, formerly known as Branch Metrics, to Samsung phones, which would provide a more in-depth app search function within the phone, allowing users to more easily find the apps they need.
However, based on the cooperation agreement between Samsung and Google, Branch must make relevant adjustments to the functions provided by Samsung phones, including content search functions based on Internet connections. At the same time, it also pays fees annually to telecom operators such as AT&T in the United States to ensure that they cannot use Branch services as the default search engine when selling Samsung phones.
In its lawsuit against the US Department of Justice, Google was found to have used illegal contracts to exclude competitors, thereby harming the interests of consumers and advertisers and preventing new services from competing fairly. Google, however, explained that its partnerships with companies like Apple and Samsung primarily serve specific customers, emphasizing that the market chooses its services because of their convenience. This suggests that many of its partnerships offer additional options, not just limited access to its services.
In the current litigation, all testimony is expected to be completed in November, and debates between the two sides will begin. Further closure and judgment are not expected until 11 at the earliest.
