# United States v. Google/Findings of Fact/Section 6A

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    A. Browser Agreements
       1. The Google-Apple Internet Services Agreement
290. The Internet Services Agreement (ISA) is an agreement between Google and Apple, wherein Google pays Apple a share of its search ads revenue in exchange for Apple preloading Google as the exclusive, out-of-the-box default GSE on its mobile and desktop browser, Safari. See generally JX33 (2016 ISA). Apple is a crucial partner to Google, in part due to “Apple’s sizeable and valuable user base, for which Apple controls distribution.” UPX6024 at 437; Tr. at 9742:1–9743:13 (Murphy) (discussing DXD37 at 40) (over half of all search volume in the United States flows through Apple devices).
          a. Current ISA Terms
291. The parties entered into the current ISA in 2016, JX33, and in 2021 extended it for a period of five years until 2026, JX97 at 357. Apple can unilaterally extend the agreement by two ​years until 2028. JX97 at 357. After that point, the agreement can be further extended until 2031 if the parties mutually agree to do so. See Tr. at 2501:17-25 (Cue). Neither party has the right to unilaterally terminate the ISA prior to its current termination date. JX33 at 800 (“The parties expressly amend the existing ISA Agreement to remove the right of either party to terminate at will[.]”).
292. The ISA also requires both parties to cooperate to defend the agreement, including in response to regulatory actions. Id. at 801.
293. Two provisions of the ISA are at the heart of the parties’ dispute: (1) the default and revenue share provisions and (2) restrictions on Apple’s product development.
             i. Default and Revenue Share
294. The ISA requires Apple to set Google as the default search engine on Safari for all its devices. Id. at 793. Under the ISA, a “Default” search engine is one that “will automatically be used for responding to Search Queries initiated from the Web Browser software, unless the End User selects a different third-party search service.” Id.
295. “Search Query” under the ISA is defined as any user input seeking information that is entered on Apple’s voice assistant, Siri; its on-device search, Spotlight; or Safari. Id. Between Siri, Spotlight, and Safari, Apple gets about 10 billion user queries per week. Roughly 80% of those queries are entered into Safari; Siri and Spotlight thus make up a minority of queries. Tr. at 2246:11–2247:9 (Giannandrea).
296. Across all Apple devices, 65% of searches are entered into Safari’s default access point, which is the integrated search bar. This means that across all Apple devices, only 35% of all queries flows through non-default search access points. UPX1050 at 894. The numbers are similar for mobile searches: 61.8% of query volume flows through search access points governed ​by the ISA, and 38.2% of queries are run through non-default search access points. See Tr. at 9758:9–9759:22 (Murphy) (discussing DXD37 at 52). But cf. UPX138 at 119 (2018 Google estimate of 80% on iOS). Only 5.1% of all searches on iPhones are conducted on a GSE other than Google. See Tr. at 9758:9–9759:22 (Murphy) (discussing DXD37 at 52). So, Google receives almost 95% of all general search queries on iPhones.
297. Queries entered through the Safari default (both mobile and desktop) account for 28% of all queries in the United States. Id. at 5763:14-22 (Whinston) (discussing UPXD104 at 36).
298. In return for these default placements, Google pays Apple % of its ad revenue on Safari and Chrome, including queries initiated through Safari’s default bookmarks. JX33 at 793, 797–98; JX24 at 822. Google pays revenue share on Chrome queries, notwithstanding the fact that Apple does not preload Chrome onto its devices. See JX33 at 796–98.
299. In 2022, Google’s revenue share payment to Apple was an estimated $20 billion (worldwide queries). Tr. at 2492:22–2493:6 (Cue). This is nearly double the payment made in 2020, which was then equivalent to 17.5% of Apple’s operating profit. Id. at 2492:2-8 (Cue); id. at 5727:20–5728:4 (Whinston) (discussing UPXD104 at 19). Google’s 2022 payment under the ISA is more than all of its other revenue share payments combined and is approximately double that combined value. Id. at 5727:5-20 (Whinston) (discussing UPXD104 at 19).
             ii. Apple’s Product Development
300. Google has long recognized that, if Apple were to develop and deploy its own search engine as the default GSE in Safari, it would come at great cost to Google. See generally UPX2. See Tr. at 7693:12–7697:12 (Pichai); id. at 8094:11–8096:4 (Gomes). For example, ​Google projected that without the ISA, it would lose around 65% of its revenue, even assuming that it could retain some users without the Safari default. See UPX1050 at 886.
301. Apple has taken steps to grow its capacity in search. In 2018, it hired the former head of Google Search, John Giannandrea, as its Chief of Machine Learning and AI Strategy. Tr. at 2164:18–2165:10 (Giannandrea). Under his leadership, Apple has made a significant commitment to developing certain foundational elements of a GSE, including crawling and indexing the web and creating a knowledge graph. Id. at 2244:19–2246:9, 2247:14-16 (Giannandrea); UPX659 at 213. It also has integrated machine learning into its development efforts. UPX1123 at 511. Apple has invested of dollars and committed employees to search development. Tr. at 2227:18–2229:1 (Giannandrea).
302. Notwithstanding these investments, Apple has decided not to enter general search at this time. Id. at 2247:17-21 (Giannandrea). Apple would forego significant revenues under the ISA if it were to do so. UPX273 at 974 (2016 email from Cue to Apple CEO Tim Cook stating that Apple would have to “jeopardize revenue” if it stopped partnering with Google); UPX460 at 176–77 (internal Apple assessment from 2018, which concluded that, even assuming that Apple would retain 80% of queries should it launch a GSE, it would lose over $12 billion in revenue during the first five years following a potential separation from Google). It would also have to undertake the risk of consumer backlash, see DX374 at .001 (Giannandrea email stating, “there is considerable risk that [Apple] could end up with an unprofitable search engine that [is] also not better for users”), and forgo investment in other areas of product development, Tr. at 2541:13-17 (Cue) (“And so if we took all of our resources and started spending them on search, sure, we could have competed with Google . . . [b]ut that meant we wouldn’t have done other things.”).
​303. Though it has not launched a full-blown GSE, Apple has introduced and integrated search functionality into its devices. Its Suggestions feature is one example. Apple can determine that a query entered into one of its access points does not qualify as a “Search Query,” as defined by the ISA, if that “determination is based exclusively on its intent to provide a superior user experience.” JX33 at 793. In practice, this means that Apple can effectively divert certain queries away from Google through a “suggestion.” See Tr. at 2217:10-16 (Giannandrea). For instance, when a user enters a navigational query into Siri, Spotlight, or Safari, Apple provides a suggested website to the user, which is intended to allow the user to directly navigate to a third-party site and skip the Google SERP entirely. See id. at 2217:3–2218:14 (Giannandrea) (discussing UPXD7). Apple also uses its own proprietary search index to identify potentially responsive websites. As depicted below, a user beginning to type “running sneakers” into Safari may be shown a “suggestion” to nike.com, which if tapped will take the user directly to Nike’s website. Id. at 2217:17–2218:8 (Giannandrea) (discussing UPXD7). Apple collects user data to deliver “suggestions.” Id. at 2219:18-21 (Giannandrea). Apple views its Suggestions functionality as providing “a much better user experience.” Id. at 2235:6-7 (Giannandrea).
UPXD7.
304. Google perceived Suggestions as a threat to its search volume. It believed that Apple’s “increasing use of their own variety of suggestions to the user [wa]s pushing the user away from completing the search on” Google. UPX309 at 823. This meant that Google could not earn advertising revenue on those queries, which could decrease its overall search revenue on Apple devices. See UPX2010 at 527 (Google analysis estimating a query loss of 10–15% of Safari traffic and a revenue loss of 4–10% of iOS Safari revenue based on Apple Suggestions).
305. In direct response, Google negotiated a new term in the 2016 ISA, which required that Apple’s implementation of the Safari default must “remain substantially similar” to prior implementations. JX33 at 793 (“Substantially Similar” clause); UPX309 at 823 (Suggestions was “why [Google] added into the [ISA] that [Apple] could not expand farther than what they were doing in” 2016 as Google “did not wish for them to bleed off traffic[.]”).
​306. Apple has broader authority with respect to Siri. It may “determine which user inputs constitute Search Queries that will be provided to Google on any basis,” not just superior user experience. JX33 at 794.
307. At present, Apple does not view the ISA as a limitation on its ability to respond to user queries on Suggestions or Siri. See Tr. at 2534:24–2535:5 (Cue) (“Q. Was one of Apple’s goals in 2015 to increase the number of users search queries Apple could answer on its own? A. . . . We still have that. We’re trying to answer more questions on Siri today. So it’s still a goal today.”); id. at 2345:11-23 (Giannandrea) (“Q. [D]id anything in Google’s agreement with Apple, with regard to the Safari browser, did that limit in any way Apple’s ability to make these Safari suggestions or Siri suggestions? A. No. . . . I didn’t believe there was any limit to what we could do with respect to these suggestions.”).
308. Another search feature on Apple devices is Spotlight. Spotlight can be accessed on the iPhone by a single downward swipe, which produces a search bar. Spotlight is “intended to be sort of a universal search that looks at your own device, but can look up information further afield,” including on Safari. Id. at 2204:23–2205:3 (Giannandrea). It is not a GSE, but Spotlight offers links to websites as if entered directly on Safari. Id. at 2205:16-21 (Giannandrea). The ISA provides that “Apple shall not be limited in its ability to alter, modify and innovate in Spotlight,” but also requires that Apple’s “initial implementation of the Spotlight Services for Search Queries within Spotlight shall be generally equivalent to the current implementation of search within Spotlight,” though “in future versions of Spotlight, Apple may offer better integrations of the Spotlight Services.” JX33 at 794.
309. The ISA also addresses Apple’s ability to serve ads. If Apple ever wishes to serve ads on Siri or Spotlight queries or results, it may only do so if it intends “to provide a superior user ​experience or align with its general advertising principles.” Id. at 796. If that threshold requirement is met, Apple is further obligated by the ISA to “offer Google the opportunity to supply such ads or paid listings” before doing so itself. Id. This provision has been described as the “Right of First Refusal.”
310. Apple does not presently advertise on Spotlight, nor does it have any plan to do so. Tr. at 2497:11-25 (Cue) (stating that Apple has “no intentions or plans to put ads on Siri or Spotlight,” and “today, we have no intentions to put ads on Siri or Spotlight”).
311. Apple also does not “preload any third-party application on [their] devices” and does not intend do so under “any scenario[.]” Id. at 2456:2-10 (Cue). Apple previously tried to preload third-party applications on desktop devices, and determined that “it wasn’t the best experience[.]” Id. at 2456:13:15 (Cue).
          b. History of the ISA
312. The ISA did not start out with Google as the exclusive default GSE. The first-ever ISA was signed in 2002. See JX1 (2002 ISA). It granted Apple the right to license Google Search, allowing its users to access the Google SERP directly from the “search box” in Apple’s web browser. Id. at 678. The contract was not exclusive as to either party: Apple could preload rival search engines, and Google could license its search product to other third parties. Id. at 679. The five-year agreement allowed for either party to terminate the agreement on certain grounds, and it permitted Apple to unilaterally terminate the agreement for any reason after its first year. Id. at 680. The 2002 ISA did not include any payment of revenue share. Cue 30(b)(6) Dep. Tr. at 26:47.
​313. Around 2005, Google initiated the idea of an exchange of revenue share for default exclusivity after it grew concerned that Yahoo might replace Google. See UPX855 at 239–40; UPX992 at 016. Apple did not ask for revenue share. See Cue 30(b)(6) Dep. Tr. at 26:8–27:2.
314. The parties subsequently amended the 2002 ISA, providing that Google would pay Apple a one-time sum of $10 million, plus 50% of its annual advertising revenue. JX2 at 818. As consideration, Apple agreed to preinstall Google as the default GSE on Safari, such that it would “automatically be used for web search unless the user selects another search provider.” Id. at 819. The 2005 amendment was set to terminate after three years, with Apple retaining the right to unilaterally terminate the agreement any time during the last year. Id. at 820.
315. In 2007, Apple launched the iPhone. The parties amended the ISA to include the Safari default placement on mobile devices and other platforms. JX4 at 647 (expanding the definition of “software” to include web browser software for iPhones, iPods, Safari for Windows, etc.).
316. The 2007 amendment included two notable amendments. First, it required that “Apple shall not pre-populate the search box with search terms that are not initiated by the end user,” but that “queries utilizing auto complete features . . . shall be considered input by the End User.” Id.; see Tr. at 5001:16–5004:15 (Braddi) (describing Apple top hits, Apple Suggestions, and Google suggestions).
317. Second, the 2007 amendment secured Google’s default status in the Safari search bar not only on the iPhone but also on various other Apple products, including iPods and Safari for Windows. JX4 at 647–49. The 2007 amendment also made clear that Google would not pay revenue share to Apple if it decided to create a homepage on Safari that included a search service other than Google. Id. This term apparently grew out of a worry that Apple might install Yahoo ​as a default GSE on a Safari for Windows homepage. UPX672 at 475–76. Apple apparently never implemented such a homepage on any version of Safari, so Google remained the only default GSE on Apple devices.
318. The ISA amendments in 2008 and 2009 were largely without substantive change. See, e.g., JX5 (2008 amendment); JX6 (2009 amendment).
319. In 2009, Apple sought greater flexibility to grant its users access to other GSEs. Apple sought “[t]he option but not the obligation to set Google as the default search provider” and still receive revenue share. UPX605 at 269. Specifically, Apple proposed that it would receive slightly less revenue share for non-default queries (40%) and the full amount (50%) for queries on search access points preset with Google as the default. See UPX675 at 249–50 (Apple redline of ISA). Google rejected those terms in large part because Apple “could decide to work with an alternate provider for the desktop/Safari search solution,” i.e., use Google as the default for some, but not all, locations or product lines/versions. UPX605 at 270; UPX675 at 250. Apple’s requests did not make it into the updated amendments. See JX9 (2009 amendment changing the revenue share percentages slightly, with no substantive changes); JX12 (2010 amendment extending the 2002 ISA, as amended, until 2014); Tr. at 4998:3-22 (Braddi) (Apple’s requests “got dropped out”). The agreement remained exclusive.
320. In 2012, Apple again sought the flexibility to distribute other GSEs to its users. It sent Google a term sheet requesting that Apple would have “[n]o obligation to use Google search services or to make Google the default” while maintaining its then-revenue share of 50% for all Google searches on Apple devices. UPX570 at 724. Google stood firm that “[i]f they wanted to receive revenue share,” Apple had to maintain Google as the exclusive Safari default. Tr. at 5001:8-11 (Braddi). The resulting amendment, entitled the 2014 Joint Cooperation Agreement, ​maintained Google as the exclusive default search engine. See JX24 at 822 (“Google shall remain the default search engine” in the United States.). The 2014 amendment also provided for the creation of “default bookmarks,” which required Apple to include a bookmark for Google Search “prominently displayed on the Safari default bookmarks page” and obligated Google to pay revenue share “for all traffic initiated via the Google search bookmark.” Id. Apple, however, was not precluded from offering default bookmarks that linked to rival GSEs, and it reached agreements with Bing and Yahoo for bookmark placement. See, e.g., DX962 at .003–.004 (Apple-Microsoft promotional agreement providing that Apple will make Bing readily discoverable, including by preloading it as a default bookmark on Safari). Two years later, Apple and Google entered into the ISA currently in effect.
          c. Microsoft-Apple Negotiations
321. Apple and Microsoft occasionally have had discussions regarding installing Bing as the default GSE on Safari. Microsoft has not been successful. See generally Tr. at 2508:3–2531:13 (Cue); id. at 3500:9–3504:17 (Nadella).
322. In 2015, prior to the signing of the 2016 ISA, Microsoft hoped that Bing might replace Google as the default GSE on Safari. Id. at 2508:7-9 (Cue). As part of its pitch, Microsoft claimed that “increased competition between Microsoft and Google enabled by a search partnership [with Apple] is in Apple’s long-term economic interests[.]” UPX614 at 112. Microsoft made clear that it was “willing to provide Apple with the majority of profits in a search partnership along with greater levels of flexibility and control over the product experience including user experience and branding,” with one example being improved private searching “consistent with the broader Apple value proposition around respecting user privacy[.]” Id.
​323. Microsoft understood that it “would have to pay and even subsidize the transfer” for the period of transition and was willing to do so for the long term. Tr. at 3502:21–3503:8 (Nadella). Microsoft offered Apple a revenue share rate of 90%, or a little under $20 billion over five years. UPX614 at 113–14. It did so recognizing that “there was going to be a period of turbulence of shift,” both as a result of the change and assuming that Google would respond by encouraging users to abandon Safari for its browser, Chrome. Tr. at 3503:22-24, 3504:4-12 (Nadella). When that offer was not accepted, Microsoft proposed sharing 100% of its Bing revenue with Apple to secure the default or even selling Bing to Apple. Id. at 2511:14-14, 2530:1421 (Cue).
324. Microsoft “thought they had great [search] quality and they said that with [Apple’s] search volume, they could be even better,” but Apple disagreed. Id. at 2510:8-11 (Cue). Moreover, Apple was concerned that despite the high revenue share percentage, Bing would not be able to bring in sufficient revenues because it was “horrible at monetizing advertising.” Id. at 2510:25–2511:11, 2511:24–2512:16 (Cue) (“If you have an inferior search engine, customers wouldn’t use it, and so, therefore, I don’t know how you could monetize it well.”).
325. Apple evaluated the potential financial impact of replacing Google with Bing. See generally UPX273. The analysis assumed that Microsoft would initially pay Apple 100% of Bing’s revenue share, while Google would continue paying Apple % revenue share if retained as the default. Id. at 975–76. The analysis showed that if Apple extended the ISA, it would gain about $40 billion from Google in the next five years, and then $70 billion in the following five years. Id. at 974. This was double the $20 billion Microsoft offered Apple for the first five years. Id. (“Clearly, Microsoft can’t commit to these numbers or even anything close to them.”).
​326. In response to this analysis, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Services, Eddy Cue, internally proposed that the only way Apple could make the switch was if Microsoft were to guarantee minimum annual revenues of $4 billion the first year and a stepped increases of $1 billion per year over the next four years, for a total of $30 billion in guarantees. Id. Still, even that approach would produce revenues well short (by $10 billion) of Apple’s expected earnings if it retained Google as the default. Id. (“[T]his doesn’t match Google ($30B v. $40B) and provides no protection for the following 5 years[.]”). Cue concluded that a Microsoft-Apple deal would only make sense if Apple “view[ed] Google as somebody [they] don’t want to be in business with and therefore are willing to jeopardize revenue to get out. Otherwise it [was a] no brainer to stay with Google as it is as close to a sure thing as can be.” Id.; Tr. at 2528:13-16 (Cue) (“And so Google’s a sure thing. They have the best search engine, they know how to advertise, and they’re monetizing really well.”).
327. Apple proposed to Microsoft that it guarantee revenues (the record is not clear whether the proposal mirrored what Cue suggested above), but Microsoft balked, which Cue expected. Tr. at 2522:3-19, 2518:18-24 (Cue). Regardless, Apple would not have accepted the deal, even if Microsoft had agreed to a guarantee. According to Cue, there was “no price that Microsoft could ever offer [Apple]” to make the switch, because of Bing’s inferior quality and the associated business risk of making a change. Id. at 2519:10-11 (Cue); id. at 2530:17-19 (Cue) (“I don’t believe there’s a price in the world that Microsoft could offer us. They offered to give us Bing for free. They could give us the whole company.”).
328. Google has also analyzed what Microsoft would need to offer Apple in order to win the Safari default. It called this study “Alice in Wonderland,” with Alice referring to Microsoft. See id. at 1678:16-20 (Roszak). The analysis concluded that in order for Microsoft to match ​Google’s financial contribution, it would have to pay Apple 122% of Bing’s revenue share just to equal Google’s then-33.75% revenue share. Id. at 1683:10-13 (Roszak); UPX674 at 914. Google thus determined that “it will not be possible for Alice to match our payments profitably[.]” UPX674 at 914. Accordingly, during ISA negotiations, Google understood that Bing was not a viable option, which minimized Apple’s leverage. See Tr. at 7772:12–7773:10 (Pichai).
329. Although Apple has never seriously considered Bing as an option, Microsoft perceives that Apple has used Bing “to bid up the price” in its negotiations with Google and extract a higher revenue share from Google. Id. at 3505:6 (Nadella). Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella testified that if, hypothetically, Bing exited the market, there would be a real concern as to whether Google would even pay Apple for default status, given the lack of any other option at all. Id. at 3505:12-17 (Nadella).
          d. DDG-Apple Negotiations
330. DDG, because of its brand emphasis on privacy, on multiple occasions has attempted to convince Apple to switch to DDG as the default GSE on Safari’s “private browsing mode,” a feature in Safari that provides some additional privacy protections beyond the baseline. Id. at 1953:3-11, 1973:16-19 (Weinberg).
331. In 2014, Apple for the first time offered DDG as an alternative default search option on Apple devices. This meant that users could change the default on Apple devices to DDG, if they chose to do so. Id. at 1972:22–1973:2 (Weinberg). That same year, DDG made its first pitch to serve as the default in Safari private browsing mode. Id. at 1973:3-5 (Weinberg). It continued to propose this idea over the following two years and received its first response from Apple in 2016. Id. at 1973:6-7 (Weinberg). DDG periodically met with Apple representatives through ​2019, but ultimately Apple declined to make the switch. See generally id. at 1974–2046 (Weinberg).
332. Upper-level Apple executives never genuinely considered using DDG as the default in Safari’s private browsing mode. Id. at 2352:21-23, 2361:7-11 (Giannandrea); id. at 2506:25–2507:7 (Cue). This is in part because DDG operates as “a veneer on top of other search engines,” as it syndicates its results from Bing. Id. at 2352:25–2353:8, 2353:22-25 (Giannandrea); id. at 2505:10-14 (Cue); see DX375; DX377 at .001 (describing DDG for private browsing as “probably a bad idea”). Apple’s senior leadership also views DDG’s search quality as inferior to Google’s. Tr. at 2353:9-11 (Giannandrea); id. at 2506:12-16 (Cue) (“[I]t is not a great search engine. . . . [I]t’s not good enough.”).
          e. Apple’s Recent Evaluation of GSEs
333. In 2021, Apple’s “Aethon” study demonstrated that, as measured by relevance of results, Google is superior to Bing on all search access points (except desktop queries on Safari). UPX260 at 681. “Google has a much larger lead on Mobile than Desktop[.]” Id. Google’s relevance advantage was particularly strong for long-tail queries. As to users’ overall preferences, Bing outperformed Google on its desktop user interface (for both Safari and Spotlight), but Google tied with Bing as to overall Safari queries and beat out Bing as to Spotlight on mobile. Id.
       2. Mozilla-Google RSA
334. Google also has a revenue sharing agreement with the browser developer Mozilla, whereby it pays Mozilla % revenue share in exchange for the default search placement on the Firefox browser. JX65 at 100, 107. The search access points on Firefox include “the search box” in the browser, “the navigation or location bar,” any “search box displayed on a Firefox Startpage,” among others. Id. at 102–03. If Mozilla implements the “this time, search with” feature on its ​mobile application, the revenue share paid under the Google-Mozilla agreement drops from % to %. See id. at 100, 107.
335. Google’s 2021 revenue share payment to Mozilla was over $400 million, or about 80% of Mozilla’s operating budget. M. Baker Dep. Tr. at 41:18-24; Tr. at 538:7-15 (Rangel) (discussing UPXD101 at 10). Mozilla has repeatedly made clear that without these payments, it would not be able to function as it does today. E.g., DX547 at .002.
336. Under the terms of the current Mozilla RSA, either party may terminate the agreement only upon a breach. See JX31 at 628–29.
          a. Mozilla-Yahoo Partnership
337. From 2014 through 2017, the default GSE on Firefox was Yahoo, not Google. Tr. at 630:12-17 (Rangel). The Mozilla-Yahoo agreement required Yahoo to pay a minimum annual payment of $375 million, or 70% revenue share, whichever was higher. DX1012 at .007; M. Baker Dep. Tr. at 220:19–221:10.
338. When Mozilla switched the Firefox default GSE from Google to Yahoo, the query volume for each search provider changed. Google’s share of queries on Firefox abruptly dropped from between 80–90% to between 60–70%, a 20-point decline. See Tr. at 630:12–631:9 (Rangel) (discussing UPXD101 at 55). Yahoo’s share, in turn, increased from around 10% to 30% of the Firefox queries. Id. Between 2014 and 2017, Google gained back some amount of query share, but never more than 70%. Id. When Mozilla reverted the default back to Google in 2017, Google regained its former query share at Yahoo’s expense. Id.
339. To meet the minimum payment guarantee, Yahoo increased the number of ads it placed on the SERP, degrading the user experience and ultimately resulting in Mozilla changing the default back to Google. M. Baker Dep. Tr. at 236:24–237:9, 239:2-11; see UPX898 at 752 ​(“The Yahoo team has been under continual pressure to increase monetization of the SERP, and has been making gradual changes over the last few months, leading to the cumulative experience you see today.”); M. Baker Dep. Tr. at 77:18–78:2; Tr. at 6043:14-25 (Whinston).
          b. Mozilla’s Experiments
340. Mozilla has run experiments to assess a potential switch of the default GSE from Google to a rival. It tends to run these experiments when its agreements come up for renewal. See M. Baker. Dep. Tr. at 269:20–270:21.
341. In a 2016 experiment, Mozilla switched the default GSE on both new and existing users from Google to Bing. By the twelfth day, Bing had kept only 42% of the search volume. DX679 at .006. After some additional time, those numbers dropped to 20–35%, depending on certain variables. Id. Mozilla’s takeaway was that switching the Firefox default to Bing would result in missing revenue targets. Id.
342. The same year, Mozilla conducted an experiment switching the default GSE to Yahoo. DX729. Yahoo only retained 16.5% of the total search volume. Id.
343. In 2017, Mozilla conducted a similar test, with Bing replacing Google. DX679 at .006. After 14 days, Bing retained 52.3% of search volume. Id.
344. From 2021 to 2022, Mozilla once again switched the default GSE to Bing for 0.5% of desktop Firefox users. See DX548 at .002. As a result, search volume decreased by 7% and ad clicks went down 13%. Id. at .003. Mozilla found: (1) “35.5% of clients who had their default search engine switched to Bing changed their default to another search engine (26% changed to Google, 9% changed to a search engine other than Bing or Google and the remaining kept Bing);” (2) the “64.5% of clients who did not switch away from Bing contributed a much lower percentage ​to total search volume and ad clicks than clients who switched back to Google;” and (3) “65% of users who did not retain Bing as their default engine made the change within the first day[.]” Id.
345. There is no evidence in the record of Mozilla running any experiments where it switched the default from Google to a non-GSE.
       3. Other Browser Agreements
346. Google has comparable agreements with smaller browsers, like Samsung’s S Browser, which have been renewed through amendments. See, e.g., UPX5131 (Google-Opera 2012 Contract); UPX5146 (Google-Opera 2021 Amendment); UPX5210 (Google-UCWeb 2017 Agreement); JX71 (Google-Samsung RSA).
347. DDG made its private browsing mode default proposal to other browser developers, including Samsung, Mozilla, and Opera, but none of them moved forward with DDG. Tr. at 2048:9-24 (Weinberg). DDG’s impression was that the common concern shared by these browsers was their contracts with Google. Id. at 2049:21-24 (Weinberg).