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Comment by rbera | Hacker News Reader

At the very least, I hope the Apple-Google ~~exclusivity~~ default agreement is revoked. I suppose it’ll take another year to figure out the actual remedies though.

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I think a year for the remedies is optimistic - could drag on for a while. Also worth mentioning that it is not an exclusivity agreement - it is a default agreement.

You’re right, my bad on the terminology. A year is definitely optimistic, I just hope that’s the first draft pending appeals. the longer it stretches on, the greater chance there is of directives being changed, lobbyists influencing politicians, etc.

> it is not an exclusivity agreement - it is a default agreement.

But it kind of is an exclusivity agreement. Have you ever tried to change the default search on an iPhone? There is only a very small list of curated searches you are allowed to pick from, and you cant add your own.

Apple doesn't allow you to switch search engines on iPhone?

They for sure do. Takes 30 seconds, just go to Settings then Safari.

they do allow you to switch - maybe it refers to google paying to be the default search engine?

seems like these days most of the payment is 36% of ads in Google searches, but maybe there is also some money sent specifically for it to be the default.

They get paid a share of ad revenue their users generate if they make Google the default in all of their web search entry points. These are not separate. The deal is 1) "make Google the default" and then 2) "there's a revenue share". No 1 then no 2.

On iOS it’s only from a pre approved list. Want to use a less censored search like Brave? Nope, unless you use something other than Safari.

What browser allows you to specify a custom search engine? I just checked Chrome and it doesn’t on desktop.

https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/95426?hl=en&co=GENI...

It's confusing, but if you add a "Site search" and then set it to your default, it becomes a "Search engine".

Ah got it, thank you.

Firefox, for what - 20 years now?

You can make any search field on any web site your default search engine.

My idea is that they could auction off the right to be the default search engine separately in each state. So google could still win most of the auctions but if some other smaller provider wanted a chance they could concentrate their whole bet into a smaller market like Rhode Island or whatever.

This could surely open the door for Apple Search as the silver lining.

Yes the silver lining is the other monopolist getting their share of the pie.

> other monopolist

Ha ha. I know what you're saying though.

Wouldn't this just hot swap one monopolist policy for another?

Pretty much. And just push Apple customers further into Apple's walled garden.

The door was open the whole time

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