I get that the exact amounts of money might be new information, but did people really not know Google was paying a Apple, Mozilla, etc. to be the default search provider? I’ve known about it for well over 10 years and I never got the impression it was any kind of secret.
Other non-secrets:
- Google’s main interest in Chrome and Android is as platforms for Google services
- Chromebooks were pushed heavily in education largely to get kids familiar with the Google ecosystem
- Chromecast and Android TV were created to compete with Apple and keep consumers invested in the Google ecosystem
Of course Google didn’t go out of their way to publicize those facts, but they were never secret. When I worked at Google it was the kind of thing that people talked about openly and without constant reminders to keep quiet about—which you’d typically get in spades with any confidential business information. It’s all the kind of stuff anyone could figure out just by thinking critically about Google’s publicly disclosed revenue sources. I’m not in the mood to track down articles but I’m certain it has all been talked about in the press many times over the years.
