Google pays Apple greater than a 3rd of its search promoting income from Safari beneath the phrases of the 2 corporations’ search default settlement, an Alphabet witness stated in open court docket Monday amid a protracted antitrust battle between Google and the Division of Justice.

The 36% determine, which was not beforehand recognized to the general public, is among the clearest indications of how profitable Google’s search deal has been for each Apple and the search engine firm. Each corporations have fought to restrict revealing the offers’ particulars, citing probably anticompetitive results.

The incidental disclosure from Alphabet’s knowledgeable witness Kevin Murphy, a professor of economics on the College of Chicago, was not anticipated. Murphy’s testimony got here as a part of the corporate’s efforts to struggle the Justice Division’s claims that the corporate illegally maintains dominance over search and promoting markets.

Williams & Connolly antitrust associate John Schmidtlein visibly cringed when Murphy revealed the quantity, Bloomberg Information reported.

The search default settlement is a significant focus of the proceedings. Choose Amit Mehta has described the Apple-Google deal because the “coronary heart” of the case. It is a quantity Wall Road pays consideration to as properly. Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi has estimated in a be aware to shoppers that Apple would see $19 billion in 2023 income on account of the search engine default take care of Google.

Neither Apple nor Google instantly responded to a request for remark.

Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai defended such offers when he testified within the proceedings. However Google’s opponents have described the association as damaging to their enterprise. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, for instance, pushed again intimately when he testified in October.

Nadella stated that “yearly” he had held the highest job at Microsoft, he had “dialogues” with Apple over a default search engine deal for Microsoft’s Bing, even when that meant billions in short-term losses. Nothing had but come of these talks, Nadella stated.

Nadella stated that the thought of an “open net” was a misnomer. “All people talks in regards to the open net, however there actually is the Google net,” he stated on the stand.