Woah! Apple blocked from messing with Google penalties

The iPhone-maker wants to defend its monopoly-making $20 billion-a-year default deal, but the judge says no, you took too long ...

The A17 Pro chip in the latest iPhone can execute four billion actions per second. What’s not so fast is Apple’s lawyers, and that may be about to cost $20 billion.

The judge in the Google antitrust trial has just denied Apple’s request to halt the proceedings that propose to rip up its lucrative default search deal.

It wanted to be allowed to make its case to save the arrangement, insisting it is to the “benefit of millions of users”.

Righto chief, but I think the world’s learning fast to focus on what Big Tech does and less on what it says, and TBH, the motive here could not be clearer.

That $20 billion-a-year is free money for Apple. It does zilch. And while Apple gets its money for nothing, Google wins its clicks for fee.

No less than 17.5 per cent of Apple’s total operating profit comes from that one deal, and it’s all the sweeter as sales of its hero iPhone are slowing.

The pay-off was also Google’s largest CAPEX, until AI came along.

Apple’s lawyers petitioned for a chance to save it, but the judge in the antitrust case Amit Mehta was having none of it.

He pointed out a 76-day delay before Apple made the move, then in the past few days, said nup… Too slow. Too bad.

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Before we get into it, a big thank you for making January the biggest readership month yet for Future Media. To celebrate, I’m running a 10-day discount on all new paid subs.

Highlights included:

• The exclusive that Google had handed over $100 million to Canadian publishers.

• A deep dive into the court battles about to rock Meta and shake up social ads.

• An attack on TikTok by multiple US States alleging it profits from child harm.

• The scoop that Google faces accusation it deleted key evidence at its antitrust trials.

• A deep dive into Netflix’s numbers showing how it’s coming after publisher ads, and

• Two investigations revealing Meta and Apple are both dangerously reliant on China.

You don't find coverage like this anywhere else. Just ask my 4,000-plus subscribers. Can you afford to miss out? Special offer now on. 👇

And please join me in welcoming the latest subs overnight from… The Bureau of Investigative Journalism in London, Emmy and Sundance-nominated filmmaker WildBear in Sydney, Outbrain in Korea (not my favourite people and about to merge with another of my bugbears Teads, but it’s nothing personal), ID-less ad tracking solution Anonymised in London, The Australian, The Times of India in Uttar Pradesh, European streaming advisors The Local Act, gaming platform Metaplay in Singapore, and many more. Good to have you all along. Let’s change the world.

Now back to Google and Apple...