Google News: Company Paid Apple $1B To Remain iPhone's Default Search Engine

Google Inc. reportedly paid Apple $1 billion in 2014 to keep its services on Apple's devices, according to court transcripts from the ongoing copyright lawsuit between Oracle and Google.

The search engine giant has not publicly revealed the detailed amount even there have tons of rumors as to how much Google really pays Apple just to include its search engine inside iOS devices.

Oracle's attorney Annette Hurst confirmed the $1 billion amount during a federal court hearing on Jan. 14, Bloomberg shared. She said in a statement that Google also provide Apple a percentage of the revenue its search engine generates on iOS devices.

Hurst said one of the witnesses disclosed during pre-trial that "at one point in time the revenue share was 34 percent." Though it's not sure if the witness really intend to convey this percentage is the figure Google paid to Apple or kept.

Still, the figures represent that the company has made possible that it will remain on iPhone search bars no matter what, Tech Times shared. It's relevant to mark that Apple CEO Tim Cook has publicly criticized advertising-based business versions that make money from user's personal data.

From being free to the public, both parties filed an appeal to block the details revealed in the transcript. The companies even asked to have the quote redacted and seal the transcript after the judge who manage over the hearing later denied the request.

"The specific financial terms of Google's agreement with Apple are highly sensitive to both Google and Apple," Google's filed request submitted on Jan. 20 stated. "Both Apple and Google have always treated this information as extremely confidential."

The record is not available in electronic court files. The case is being tried in U.S. District Court, the Northern District of California, San Francisco.

After Google lost an appeal to the U.S.Supreme Court in its software copyright lawsuit, it was referred back there in June 2015. That claims Google's Android smartphone operating system violates on copyrights of Oracle's Java software language.