Bloomberg: Google Paid Apple $1 Bln To Be Default Search Engine On IPhone

(RTTNews) - Apple Inc. (AAPL) received $1 billion from Alphabet Inc.'s (GOOGL, GOOG) Google in 2014 to keep it as the default search engine on the iPhone, Bloomberg reported Thursday, citing a transcript of court proceedings from business software giant Oracle Corp.'s (ORCL) copyright lawsuit against Google.

According to the Bloomberg report, an attorney for Oracle said at a hearing in federal court last week that Google has a revenue-sharing agreement with Apple that gives Apple a percentage of the revenue generated by Google through the iPhones.

Oracle filed a lawsuit against Google in 2010, accusing the Internet search giant of using a modified version of Java software to develop Android without paying Oracle for it. Java is owned by Oracle.

Annette Hurst, Oracle's attorney, said that a Google witness questioned during pretrial information revealed that the revenue share between Google and Apple was 34 percent at one point in time, according to the Bloomberg report.

Google objected to the information being revealed and asked the judge to strike the mention of the figure from the record.

But the magistrate judge presiding over the hearing is said to have refused Google's request to block the sensitive information in the transcript from public review.

Google then asked the district judge William Alsup to seal and redact the transcript, saying that the financial terms of the deal with Apple are "highly sensitive" to both Google and Apple.