Google today filed an appeal against a 2024 ruling that found it violated antitrust law by paying to be the default search engine on iPhones. In a filing with the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, Google said the district court erred in concluding that Google’s search success was due to anything other than fair competition.
Google suggested that it outperformed the competition through better innovation, more investment, and “just working harder,” which is why Apple chose Google Search as its default search option on Apple devices.
That Google only has the power to dominate, Google has not done anything “harmful.”[ed] competitive process.” It did not prevent its competitors from making—or Apple’s and Mozilla’s ability to choose—a better offer. Indeed, there is no finding—or even any evidence—that Google’s customers would have chosen a competitor, even in the absence of challenging agreements. Google has recently succeeded in the market.
The filing points out that Apple was free to distribute and promote rival search engines, Google highlights other browser options that Apple provides in the Safari settings. Google suggests that any “variation” interpreted by the district court was Apple’s decision “for reasonable business reasons.”
Google is asking the appeals court to overturn the remedies it created to deal with one of the searches. Google was told to share search data, provide information about user interactions, and sell its results to competing companies, which it would have to begin doing barring a successful appeal.
While Google aims to have the entire decision released, Google also wants AI production companies like OpenAI to be excluded from data acquisition. Google says the AI products “didn’t even exist” at the time of the DoJ filing, so it makes no sense for them to have access to the search data. Google went on to say that AI companies “are already as wildly successful as any technology in human history without the need to free ride on Google’s success.”
Google pays Apple billions of dollars each year to be the Safari search engine, and the deal was a big part of the antitrust case brought by the US Department of Justice against Google. Apple’s search engine agreement with Google could be addressed in the remedies available to Google, but the court did not prohibit Google from entering into search agreements.
Although Google is prohibited from entering into exclusive search engine distribution contracts, it is still allowed to pay Apple to be the search engine option on the iPhone. The DoJ also demanded that Google be forced to sell its Chrome browser and possibly release the Android operating system, but none of those results have been implemented.
Remedies in the case of DoJ vs. Google started working on February 3, but Google is not required to provide the data yet because the details of its use have not been specified. The five-member Technical Committee appointed by the judge presiding over the case has yet to define licensing terms or privacy protections, and no way for companies to qualify as competitors has been established.
Oral arguments for Google’s appeal have not been scheduled, so it’s unlikely we’ll hear more on the matter until late 2026 or early 2027.