It looks like Google is willing to go to great lengths to keep their search engine at the top of the list in the mobile platform. So much so that they have agreed to share a percentage of their revenue with Apple to keep their search bar up, front, and center.
This is according Annette Hurst, Oracle’s attorney during a hearing in federal court. She specified that at one point in time, the revenue share was 34 percent, and in 2014, Google paid Apple US$1 billion.
Oracle Corp.’s filed a copyright lawsuit against the search engine giant in 2010 over claims that Google used its Java software without paying for it to develop Android. The damages Oracle seeks may exceed US$1 billion since it expanded its claims to cover newer Android versions.
According to Bloomberg, the transcript containing this information has vanished without a trace from electronic court records. This is no surprise as Google has requested for the transcript to be blocked saying the disclosure could severely affect its ability to negotiate similar agreements with other companies. Although the request was denied by the magistrate judge.
“The specific financial terms of Google’s agreement with Apple are highly sensitive to both Google and Apple. Both Apple and Google have always treated this information as extremely confidential,” said Google in their filing.