Bloomberg reported that a Billion of dollars was paid by the US internet giant Google in the year 2014 so that it is the go-to search tool on iPhones. Bloomberg could make a comment only after citing court documents as the financial figures are generally kept private by Google and Apple. But as per Bloomberg, a rare glimpse of the financial figures was provided by an Oracle attorney during a court hearing in San Francisco last week.
Google lawyers ensured that a transcript of the proceeding is not provided among the documents that are available at the court’s digital filing system. They got it redacted and sealed. An Oracle attorney disclosed that Google, a subsidiary of corporate parent Alphabet, had paid a billion dollars in the year 2014 in order to secure its position as the default search engine on iPhones. As per the Lawyers of Google, oracle has improperly unveiled highly sensitive and confidential information about the revenues and profits of their Android mobile operating software.
Google also contended that the Android revenue details that was cited by an Oracle attorney in open court in the last week had been labelled as “Highly Confidential – Attorney’s Eyes Only”. As per Bloomberg, an Oracle lawyer also made a statement in the court that Google had $22 billion in profit from Android and hence making it available for free to mobile device makers.
The very first Android-powered smart phone that was launched in 2008 along with the software now powers more than 80 percent of smartphones that were sold worldwide. During a long-running legal fight over whether Android was using copyright-protected elements of Java code made by Oracle without permission, the figures were briefly made public. Apple is not a party in the case but Oracle lawyers argued that the impressive sum of money is taken by Google from Android hence must be factored in by the court.
