Class action lawsuit alleges Google pays Apple to stay out of the search engine market | AppleInsider
▻https://appleinsider.com/articles/22/01/04/class-action-lawsuit-alleges-google-pays-apple-to-stay-out-of-the-sear
A class-action antitrust case has been filed that claims Apple and Google have violated U.S. antitrust laws in how they deal with each other, up to and including the payments that keeps Google’s search engine as default on Apple products.
The complaint claims that Google and Apple have agreed that Apple would forego developing its own search engine to avoid competing with Google.
It also alleges that there has been a secret agreement that Google would share its search profits with Apple, and that Apple would give preferential treatment to Google on all Apple devices. By doing so, both companies are alleged to have worked together to suppress the competition of smaller competitors, effectively pushing them out of the search engine market. It also claims because of the alleged collusion, advertising rates are higher than in a competitive system.