How the U.S. v. Google antitrust case shakes out remains to be seen, but one thing it’s exposed is just how much the company is willing to pay to be the default search option across devices and platforms. That, of course, is information that Google wants kept private—it argues that disclosure will hurt its ability to negotiate contracts—but the judge in the case, Amit Mehta, wants greater openness in the trial and has ordered that certain numbers be revealed.
As a result, we now know the amount Google paid to be the default search engine in various browsers, phones, and platforms—in one particular year, at least. According to testimony on Friday by Prabhakar Raghavan, a senior executive responsible for search and advertising at Google, the tech giant paid $26.3 billion to other companies for the privilege in 2021. The payments for the defaults, Raghavan added, were the company’s biggest cost.
