Google paid $26 billion in 2021 for default search engine status

Vice president Prabhakar Raghavan testified Friday that Google paid $26.3 billion in 2021 for the purpose of maintaining default search engine status and acquiring traffic, Bloomberg reports. It's likely the lion's share of that sum went to Apple, which it has showered with exorbitant sums for many years in order to remain the default search option on iPhone, iPad and Mac. Raghavan, who was testifying as part of the DOJ's ongoing antitrust suit against the company, said Google's search advertisi...