Well, they pay $20 billion to Apple, Firefox etc to be default and now that can't be exclusive - but you could always change search engines so in practice perhaps nothing changes at all.

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dragonwriter 2 days ago | parent [-]

If it can't be exclusive, that means other providers must be allowed to pay to be default on some portion of installs? If so, wouldn't that result in the basis of payment changing to a basis which takes into account the number or (e.g., advertising demographics-based) desirability of the default installs that Google receives, rather than a global amount based on what is expected to be aggregate number and desirability of all users of the product covered by the agreement?

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brookst 2 days ago | parent [-]

Forbidding Google from requiring exclusivity is not the same thing as mandating that Apple accept payments from others.

Google can afford to pay more per user/click because of scale economies; their cost per user/click is lower. So, great, Google will pay Apple $20/user/year on a nonexclusive basis, and Firefox or whoever are free to match or exceed that, so long as they don't mind losing money on every user.

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2 days ago | parent | next [-]

[deleted]

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warkdarrior 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

So the problem is that Firefox does not find its users to be as valuable as Google's?

	▲	brookst 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		It's just reality. I'm not sure it's "the problem".