Google can still pay Apple $20 Billon every year!

Google is definitely happy today. Because they finally won their antitrust case. But honestly, Apple might be the happiest one. A federal judge ruled that Google could continue to pay billions to stay the default search engine in Safari. That deal gets Apple around $20 billion every year, which is basically free money for them.

The Justice Department wanted to limit Google’s ability to buy itself into being the default browser, but Judge Amit Mehta says that blocking the payments would do more harm than good.

The interesting thing here is the partnership. Apple and Google are both competitors. iPhone vs Android and Safari vs Chrome, but when it comes to search, Apple is fine with Google’s domination. (As long as it gets money.) If Google had lost this case they would have lost all of their traffic from Apple, a nightmare for Google. So this partnership is needed on both sides.

As for you and me, not much will change. If you open Safari today, Google Search will still be the default. No new screens and extra options. Which means smaller search engines like DuckDuckGo and Bing are still left out.

So the story goes on, Google avoids punishment, and Apple still gets its billions every year. What do you think about this renewed partnership? Leave your answer in the comments.