Currently, Apple and Google are engaged in a lucrative partnership that nets the former around $8 billion a year. This partnership involves Apple sending its sizable userbase (think billions!) to Google Search and, in return, it receives a commission from Google’s search ad revenue. Though Apple benefits tremendously, Google still needs Apple to promote the search engine and maintain its market dominance. This arrangement means that Apple gets to enjoy several advantages, like having free resources to improve its non-web search capabilities, as well as having the world’s most effective bargaining chip when it comes to price negotiations with Google. Despite this, Apple’s policy has always been to “own the core technologies underlying its products,” as Bloomberg puts it. If the tech giant ever took advantage of its knowledge and close proximity to Google’s search engine, it would wield great search power and get to keep more ad revenue. It wouldn’t have to match Google’s ability to […]