Google has admitted to paying an "enormous sum of money" to Samsung each month to have its Gemini AI app pre-installed on the smartphones developed by the South Korean company. Peter Fitzgerald, Google's vice president of platforms and device partnerships, testified that Google started paying Samsung in January this year despite the company being found to have violated antitrust law, according to a report in Bloomberg.
As per the publication, Mr Fitzgerald revealed that the Gemini deal is a two-year agreement where, apart from the fixed monthly payments, Google gives Samsung a percentage of its subscription revenue for the Gemini app.
Department of Justice (DOJ) lawyer David Dahlquist also called the fixed monthly payment an “enormous sum". However, neither Google nor the DOJ have divulged how exactly enormous the sum is.
The new revelation comes at a time when Judge Amit Mehta, who is overseeing the current case, has already stated that the practice of paying companies to set their apps as default on Samsung phones was a clear violation of the antitrust laws.
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'Google violating antitrust laws'
This is not the first instance when Google has been found offering money to Samsung to install its apps on the devices. The tech giant paid Samsung $8 billion to default Google Play Store, Assistant, and Search between 2020-2023. It is also reported that Apple was paid $20 billion in 2022 for Google to be the default search engine in the Safari browser.
The DOJ attorneys have claimed that Google used classic monopoly-building tactics of eliminating competitors through acquisitions, locking customers into using its products, and controlling how transactions occurred in the online ad market.
If the DOJ has its way, it could mean that Google might be banned from striking such deals that made its apps the default option on smartphones. Additionally, the company could be forced to sell Chrome and license the vast majority of the data that powers Google Search.
