Google’s annual multi-billion dollar Search deal with Apple to continue but terms and conditions apply

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Google has managed to protect one of its most important business arrangements, its annual deal with Apple to remain the default search engine on iPhones but it won’t come without restrictions.

A US judge has ruled that Google can keep paying tech giants like Apple and other device makers to feature its search engine by default. These partnerships, worth more than $26 billion every year, ensure Google’s search bar is front and center for billions of users worldwide.

The ruling comes after a long antitrust battle between Google and the US Justice Department, which accused the company of abusing its monopoly in online search. Prosecutors had pushed for drastic measures, including breaking up the company and forcing it to sell Chrome, the world’s most widely used browser. Judge Amit Mehta rejected that idea, saying such a breakup would go too far.

However, the court didn’t let Google off the hook entirely. As part of the verdict, Google will now be required to share valuable search data, information gathered from trillions of queries over the years , with rivals. Regulators hope this will give competing search engines a better shot at improving their results and challenging Google’s dominance.

The decision lands at a tricky time for Google. While it has avoided the worst-case scenario of losing Chrome or its Apple deal, it now faces rising competition from AI-powered tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity, which are changing how people look for information online.

In short, Google keeps its billion-dollar Apple partnership intact — but it must play by new rules designed to level the search game.