Google considered blocking Safari users from accessing its new AI features, report says

Google’s dominance of the search industry is the target of an ongoing Justice Department investigation – and its relationship with Apple is a key component of that case. A new report from The Information today focuses on how Google is racing to reduce its reliance on Apple’s Safari browser ahead of the potential outcome of the antitrust case.

One aspect of the Justice Department’s case against Google is the company’s deal with Apple to be the default search engine on the iPhone. Google pays Apple upwards of $20 billion per year to retain that default status, something the Justice Department says hinders competition in the search engine industry. Notably, Apple is not named as a party in the lawsuit, but the case has led to testimonies from Apple executives such as Eddy Cue.

Today’s report explains that Google wants to increase the share of searches from iPhone users outside of Safari itself:

For several years, Google has been trying to protect itself against that possibility by trying to persuade iPhone owners to switch to either the Google or Chrome apps for their searches. While Google has made headway—lifting the percentage of searches done that way to the low 30s from 25% five years ago—that progress stalled in the second half of last year.

And the low 30s percentage is well below Google’s target of raising the number of iPhone searches done through its own apps to 50% by 2030, according to three people who have worked on the effort.

The billions of dollars that Google pays Apple every year comes in the form of a revenue-sharing agreement, where Apple gets a cut of advertising revenue from Google searches performed in Safari. By pushing users toward the Chrome and Google apps, Google pays Apple less money and makes it less vulnerable to regulation.

Convincing users to use its own apps instead of Safari, however, has been a challenge for Google. “It’s simply too hard to overcome the fact that Safari is preinstalled on Apple devices,” sources told The Information.

The report also details that Google hired former Instagram and Yahoo executive Robby Stein to oversee the push away from Safari. As part of this, Google executives reportedly considered limiting its AI Overviews feature to its own apps. This would mean Safari users wouldn’t see AI Overviews in search results, but people using Google’s own apps would. Google, however, “ultimately decided against that move,” the report says.

The report makes it clear that Google has been trying to ween itself off Safari for years, with little success. Whether or not the results change remains to be seen, but the true elephant in the room is the US Justice Department’s antitrust, where a ruling is expected “sometime in the next few months.”