Would/could this be seen from google's financial statements? My naive understanding is that if the answer is no, then google must've made a conscious effort in financial engineering to hide it.
It's blended into their cost of revenue number with all their other revenue sharing programs (Admob, Adsense, Youtube Creators, etc). From their SEC filings
"Cost of revenues is comprised of TAC and other costs of revenues.
•TAC includes:
◦Amounts paid to our distribution partners who make available our search access points and services. Our distribution partners include browser providers, mobile carriers, original equipment manufacturers, and software developers.
◦Amounts paid to Google Network partners primarily for ads displayed on their properties.
TAC as a percentage of revenues generated from ads placed on Google Network properties are significantly higher than TAC as a percentage of revenues generated from ads placed on Google Search & other properties, because most of the advertiser revenues from ads served on Google Network properties are paid as TAC to our Google Network partners."
I'm not an accountant, but I've been on the company side before. You do have to disclose a lot of stuff when you're a public company, but you don't have to itemize in detail. They could probably have simple classified all that money as "Search" or "Search promotion" or something very broad.
"Cost of revenues is comprised of TAC and other costs of revenues.
•TAC includes:
◦Amounts paid to our distribution partners who make available our search access points and services. Our distribution partners include browser providers, mobile carriers, original equipment manufacturers, and software developers.
◦Amounts paid to Google Network partners primarily for ads displayed on their properties.
TAC as a percentage of revenues generated from ads placed on Google Network properties are significantly higher than TAC as a percentage of revenues generated from ads placed on Google Search & other properties, because most of the advertiser revenues from ads served on Google Network properties are paid as TAC to our Google Network partners."