A witness in the US Department of Justice’s monopoly trial against Google provided a little more information than intended. The man accidentally revealed financial details about the Google-Apple deal.

Kevin Murphy, a professor at the University of Chicago, accidentally revealed key financial details of the Google-Apple deal. He did this in his role as a witness in the American judicial monopoly trial against the former.

A piece of the cake

Thanks to Professor Murphy, the world now knows that Apple receives 36 percent of Google’s revenue from the Safari web browser. This money comes from ads the company displays on its search engine.

According to Bloomberg, John Schmidtlein, Google’s top local lawyer, was visibly disturbed by the incident. It was therefore not intended to pass on this information. Something both parties had agreed upon. Google had stated that publishing this figure would unnecessarily undermine its position. Murphy was on the witness stand as an economic expert for, yes, Google.

The agreement has existed for more than twenty years. Google is clearly willing to pay to be the default search engine in Apple’s Safari browser and de facto in every iPhone, making this the biggest deal of its kind for the search giant.

Highlights

It’s not the first time the trial has produced notable statements or important details. Details emerged not only about the billions, but also about the less cool ideas that would make Google the default search engine somewhere.

At least for Google there were also positive statements. In any case, Mozilla CEO Mitchell Baker’s statement was a big boost. Even Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella stated under oath that Google Search is better than Bing. In any case, the last decisive word in this process has not yet been spoken.