Bloomberg has reported that Apple was subpoenaed by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission in regards to the building of a possible antitrust case against Google. They were looking for information regarding terms on how Google was decided on as the default search engine on iOS devices.
Reports say that Google earned $1.3 billion dollars in search-related ad revenue from Apple products last year. It goes on to say that Google paid Apple $1 billion to be the default search engine. Ninety-five percent of all search-related revenue was generated by Google last year.
While the desire to encourage competition is admirable, it’s unknown whether this subpoena will amount to anything. Apple using Microsoft’s Bing would cause many to scratch their heads, and Google is arguably the best engine on the market. Besides, would Apple really collude with their direct competitor in the smartphone market? My guess is no.
