Google, the search engine even a toddler might recognize, originates in 1995 at Stanford University. Larry Page and Sergey Bin, working from their dormitories developed a search engine “backrub”. Backrub empathized on the importance of individual pages on World Wide Web.

It was later renamed as “Google” on the mathematical algorithm of organizing the world information and making it accessible to everyone worldwide.

It was in august 1998, with the help of Scott Hassan and Alen Steremberg, Google Inc. was born.

After settling in Mountain view in 2003, google marked a rapid growth and became world’s largest media company.

Google introduced Google News in 2002, Gmail in 2004, Maps in 2005, Chrome in 2008, and Google+, a social network, in 2011. It became the principle subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. in 2015. It has collaborated with AOL, News Corporation, Sun Microsystems, NASA, Sky UK, and other organizations. Google.org is a charitable spinoff that the firm established in 2005.

Google as default browser

The importance of having a browser at default definitely changes the course of things. Evidently, Google agrees and has paid an astounding sum to ensure that it is the default browser. Testimony during the trial disclosed that Google spent $26.3 billion in total in 2021 to be the search engine of choice across a variety of platforms, phones, and browsers.

During the Justice Department’s cross-examination of Google’s search head, Prabhakar Raghavan, the figure, which represents the total of all of Google’s search distribution agreements, was revealed. According to senior executive Prabhakar Raghavan, who oversees both search and advertising, the sum of money Google paid for the default status has more than tripled since 2014.

Google's first production server — Google’s first production server

Following a discussion between the parties and Judge Amit Mehta earlier in the week on whether the number ought to be withheld, it was made public. This was one of the most important new pieces of information to be revealed openly in the trial, and Mehta has started to advocate for increased transparency in general.

The parent companyAlphabet, said in its most recent financial report that revenue from Google Search’s advertising business was approximately $165 billion in the previous year and $44 billion over the previous three months. Its whole advertising division, which includes YouTube commercials, turned a little under $90 billion in profit. Though this is all approximate calculation, in essence, Google is forfeiting to those distribution partnerships roughly 16 percent of its search income and 29 percent of its profit.

The New York Times has revealed that Google will have to pay roughly $18 billion in 2021 for the agreement that makes it the default search engine in all of its products while using Safari. (That specific contract has been the center of attention for the first several weeks of the trial due to Apple’s disproportionate share of the total).

Furthermore, it pays Samsung for default placement on its devices, Mozilla for default placement in Firefox, and it has agreements with several device manufacturers, wireless carriers, and other platforms to be the default as well.

Since these figures have been kept under wraps, analysts and rivals have been left to guess as to how much the browser values being the almost universal default option. The revelation coincides with the commencement of Google’s defense phase in the trial, which saw Raghavan testify that Google constantly runs the risk of losing its users to latest apps like TikTok and ChatGPT.

In addition, Raghavan stated that he finds Yelp and Amazon as rivals and that Google must use all of its effort to remain competitive in such a crowded industry.

On the other hand, the Justice Department is arguing that spending $26.3 billion to ensure default status everywhere is essentially a means of ensuring that the market isn’t competitive. Mehta has a couple more weeks of testimony before determining what is justified.

Google’s revenue

In 2021, Google’s search advertising revenue totaled $146.4 billion. Its largest expense, however, was default setting fees.

Although parent firm Alphabet’s widely monitored Google Cloud unit underperformed analyst forecasts, the company’s overall revenue for the quarter was greater than anticipated.

Even though Alphabet reported robust third-quarter earnings on Tuesday after months of moderate growth, the company’s stock declined in after-hours trade. Revenue for the third quarter was $76.69 billion, exceeding expert projections of $75.9 billion and up 11% year over year.

YouTube, which has had difficulty competing with rivals like TikTok, exceeded expert projections by generating $7.95 billion in revenue as opposed to the projected $7.81 billion. The company’s response to TikTok, Shorts, has 70 billion views each day on average, up from 50 billion at the start of the year.

The company’s CEO, Sundar Pichai, revealed new features for Shorts during a call with investors, including AI-powered video editing capabilities.

Alphabet has made a point of emphasizing its commitment on artificial intelligence, a field it has long led and integrated into products such as Search. Pichai, in a statement, credited Alphabet’s integration of artificial intelligence into almost every department for the overall rise this quarter.

“We’re still committed to improving AI’s usefulness for all users. Despite the setback, cloud revenue was up 22% year over year, he said, adding that there was great growth and much more to come.

Alphabet, whose advertising income has declined recently due to a general slump in the economy. It follows after Cloud earlier than anticipated and made a profit for the first time since its 2008 inception in the first quarter of this year.

This year, Alphabet has implemented a number of cost-cutting initiatives. In January, the company announced that it would eliminate around 12,000 positions, or 6% of its global workforce. The corporation reduced hiring and removed hundreds of more positions in its recruiting division in September.

Alphabet also planned to eliminate certain employee incentives, according to an internal memo dated March. Google laid off employees as recently as last week at both its biotech company Verily and its autonomous vehicle spinoff Waymo.

Google Cloud reported operational profits of $266 million in the third quarter of 2018, up from an operating loss of $440 million in the same period the previous year. Revenue increased by 22.5% to $8.41 billion. Wall Street anticipated $8.62 billion in cloud computing sales.

In contrast, LSEG data revealed that Microsoft’s Intelligent Cloud division, which is home to the Azure cloud computing platform, saw sales increase to $24.3 billion, beyond analysts’ projected amount of $23.49 billion, as reported by Reuters. Compared to a 26.2% growth prediction from market research firm Visible Alpha, Azure sales increased by 29%.