In 2021, Google spent $26 billion to become the default search engine

 In 2021, Google spent $26 billion to become the default search engine.

A senior business official said at the Justice Department's antitrust trial that Alphabet's Google paid $26.3 billion to other businesses in 2021 to guarantee its search engine was the default on online browsers and mobile phones, Bloomberg News reported on Friday.

According to senior executive Prabhakar Raghavan, who oversees both search and advertising, Google's payments for the default position have more than quadrupled since 2014.

According to Raghavan, Google's largest expense in 2021 was paying for the default setting, with the company earning $146.4 billion from search advertising. This information was reported in a Bloomberg story.

When approached by Reuters, Google refused to comment on the testimony.

The corporation claims that it spent to maintain the competitiveness of its search and advertising businesses, and that the revenue sharing arrangements are lawful. It has also maintained that users may and do change to a different search engine if they are unhappy with the settings.

Google had opposed to the figures being made public, claiming that doing so would negatively impact the company's future contract negotiation position. The article also said that Judge Amit Mehta, who is presiding over the case, decided that the figures need to be made public.