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Google AI

Google Pays Samsung 'Enormous Sums' for Gemini AI App Installs (msn.com) 18

Posted by msmash from the old-habits-die-hard dept.
Google pays Samsung an "enormous sum of money" every month to preinstall Google generative AI app, Gemini, on its phones and devices, according to court testimony, even though the company's practice of paying for installations has twice been found to violate the law. From a report: The company began paying Samsung for Gemini in January, according to Peter Fitzgerald, Google's vice president of platforms and device partnerships, who testified Monday in Washington federal court as part of the Justice Department's antitrust case. The contract, set to run at least two years, provides fixed monthly payments for each device that preinstalls Gemini and pays Samsung a percentage of the revenue Google earns from advertisements within the app, Fitzgerald told Judge Amit Mehta, who is overseeing the case.

Google Pays Samsung 'Enormous Sums' for Gemini AI App Installs More | Reply

Google Pays Samsung 'Enormous Sums' for Gemini AI App Installs

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  • I disabled Gemini (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward

    It's annoying that I disabled Gemini but still see buttons and prompts for it. I also changed my default assistant but still get the Google one popping up with certain shortcuts, even though it should be bringing up the dummy app I chose.

    What a pain in the ass.

    • Gemini is the cockroach of apps. Incredibly difficult to get rid of and nobody actually wants it.

      Reminds me the old days when you'd install a random program on Windows and it would try to install a browser toolbar for you. Nobody wanted these things, but dozens of major companies were convinced they had to have it to hold onto the market. A market of basically zero customers that would pay for a toolbar that shows you ads and sniff your search history.

      Fast forward 20 years and nobody has learned a thing. Bi

      • I'd like a personal AI agent that actually works. Problem is, they don't actually work, and are probably 100 years from being useful, as far as I am concerned.

    • First world problems are a real bitch, eh?

  • Paying someone to pre-install your (cr)app on their devices is pretty standard practice. Without it, TVs and even phones would cost a good chunk of change more than they do today.

    Paying Samsung to put an AI tool on their phones presumably commands a premium because Samsung have their own AI (albeit, probably the shittest of all AIs, given Samsung wrote it) - putting a competing one on would naturally demand greater fees.

    Paying Samsung to put a tool on their phones at the expense of someone else's competing

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Tx ( 96709 )

      ...other than if google need to pay so much to get it on there, maybe it's not actually very good?

      Most people just go with the default apps that come on their phone for most things (no, I don't have statistics, but Gemini itself says "A large majority of smartphone users, about 95%, tend to stick with the default apps and settings on their phones" FWIW). My parents haven't installed a single app on their phones that I didn't install for them. So Gemini could be an absolute genius app, and most people would

    • Paying someone to pre-install your (cr)app on their devices is pretty standard practice. Without it, TVs and even phones would cost a good chunk of change more than they do today.

      Paying Samsung to put an AI tool on their phones presumably commands a premium because Samsung have their own AI (albeit, probably the shittest of all AIs, given Samsung wrote it) - putting a competing one on would naturally demand greater fees.

      Paying Samsung to put a tool on their phones at the expense of someone else's competing tool, that's not okay.

      So in summary... I'm not sure there's anything wrong here, other than if google need to pay so much to get it on there, maybe it's not actually very good?

      Nothing wrong here? Didn't even bother to read the first sentence of the summary?

      Google pays Samsung an "enormous sum of money" every month to preinstall Google generative AI app, Gemini, on its phones and devices, according to court testimony, even though the company's practice of paying for installations has twice been found to violate the law.

      "violate the law" seems pretty clear-cut. If it's twice been found to violate the law, and they're still doing it? That's textbook "wrong." I know we're in an era where our government seems hell-bent on doing away with law, but legality still counts in the corporate world, despite the inconvenience of it.

      • "violate the law" seems pretty clear-cut. If it's twice been found to violate the law, and they're still doing it? That's textbook "wrong."

        Does this still apply if Samsung is based outside the US? I don't live in the US and bought a new Samsung phone a few days ago (the old phone no longer gets Android updates and Samsung have about the longest software support), it has Gemini. Why should that worry the courts in the US?

        • "violate the law" seems pretty clear-cut. If it's twice been found to violate the law, and they're still doing it? That's textbook "wrong."

          Does this still apply if Samsung is based outside the US? I don't live in the US and bought a new Samsung phone a few days ago (the old phone no longer gets Android updates and Samsung have about the longest software support), it has Gemini. Why should that worry the courts in the US?

          That's a fair question, and one I can't directly answer. I can only address the direct flaunting of US law within the US. Outside the US? Up to your government and courts.

          I suppose that's anti-American of me.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Zocalo ( 252965 )
      Yes, it's pretty standard practice, but this has come to light as part of the abuse of monopoly / antitrust trial. Remember, if it's free, then *you* (or your data) are the product, so that Google is apparently paying an "enormous sum of money" to have this preinstalled means that your data it's hoovering up is going to be worth even more than that to Google when it comes to selling ads based on that data to their real customers.

      Think about the kinds of stuff people feed into GAN tools, now imagine how

      • Yes, clearly Google think it's worth it to them to pay to get Gemini pre-installed. The commercial value is immaterial though - it's only illegal if it's designed to squeeze other players out of the market. If the deal Google have struck has clauses that prevent other AI players from doing the same thing, then it's likely illegal, otherwise it may be perfectly legal.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Zocalo ( 252965 )
          Sure, but as far as the court goes, I think this is probably comes back to establishing intent around Google's modus operandi and internal corporate interactions in the ad market. Even without an exclusivity clause, the likelihood it that Samsung are going to bundle a second AI tool, besides (possibly) their own is probably around zero, so that squeezes other players out of Samsung's sizeable share of the market. Plus however many other vendors bundle Gemini under similar agreements. They've already been

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