Apple, Google agreed to ‘defend’ search deal from regulators: Executive
Apple Apple Inc.'s lucrative agreement to use Alphabet Inc.'s Google as the default search engine for the iPhone includes a provision that the two tech giants will “support and defend” the deal against government scrutiny, a top Apple executive said at an antitrust trial.
Their long time contract was renegotiated in 2016 to include the provision, Apple's Senior Vice President of Services Eddy Cue disclosed Tuesday in a Washington federal court, where the US government is pressing its claim that Google operates a monopoly in the search business.
Cue, the architect of the most recent version of the agreement, said the provision for a joint defence was added at Google's request. He said it was handled by company lawyers so he couldn't speak directly to why it was included.
Around that time, the European Union was investigating Google's dominance in online search.
During his testimony, the executive defended Apple's arrangement with its tech rival, saying it was the best choice for customers to have Google as the default search engine. “There certainly wasn’t a valid alternative we would have gone to at the time,” Cue said.
“I don't know what we would have done” if the deal had collapsed,” he said.
Google first became the default option in the Safari browser in 2002. That deal has been revised several times.
Cue said the contract was extended in 2021, after the Justice Department filed its initial case against Google’s search dominance the year before.
Google pays Apple billions of dollars for this prominent position on products like the iPhone, making the agreement of particular interest to the government. The question before the judge in the antitrust trial is whether the search giant pushed its way onto Apple devices
