Apple reportedly made deal to get cleaner Amazon pages

Apple has reached an agreement with Amazon to remove competitors’ ads from the pages of iPhones, iPads, MacBooks and other products, according to a report from Insider. The deal makes search results and product pages for Apple devices cleaner than those of competitors.

Although Amazon still lists competing products on Apple’s product search results pages, it limits the ads it pastes above, below, and between results. For example, when you search for an iPhone 15 on Amazon, you will only see an Apple product in a banner at the top of the page with another banner ad at the very bottom. Meanwhile, searches for competing devices, like the Samsung Galaxy S23, bring up ads for other products and services on the results page.

In addition to cleaning up Apple’s search results, Insider points out that Amazon is also reducing ads for Apple product pages. Instead of advertising “products related to this item” and items rated “4 stars and above,” Apple’s product pages are relatively ad-free. The same can’t be said for product pages from companies like Samsung, which are often filled with recommended items from other brands further down the page.

The ad-free pages stem from a deal Apple made in 2018 to sell its products on Amazon, according to Insider. In an email previously released by the House Judiciary Committee, Jeff Wilke, Amazon’s former retail chief, wrote: “We understand that Apple does not want to drive sales to competing brands in search or detail pages… On product detail pages, we understand that Apple does not want to see any product placement recommending non-Apple products.

Apple spokesperson Fred Sainz confirmed the deal The edge, stating that it limits advertising in spaces containing certain Apple-related queries. It remains unclear whether Apple pays Amazon for the ad space it monopolizes – and if so, how much. After all, Wilke’s email to Amazon said: “Apple should buy these placements or compensate Amazon for lost advertising revenue.” »

The “unwanted” ads that Amazon runs on its marketplace are one of the behaviors pointed out by the Federal Trade Commission in its antitrust lawsuit against the company, saying it extracts “billions of dollars from increased advertising despite the degradation of its services for customers.” By mostly avoiding them, Apple could have a leg up on other retailers on Amazon.