Emails from Alphabet Inc.’s GOOG GOOGL CEO Sundar Pichai, predating his appointment as the company’s chief executive officer, have unveiled his concerns about the bad ‘optics’ of Google’s deal with Apple Inc. AAPL.
What Happened: Pichai’s emails, dating back to 2007 when he was in charge of Google’s Chrome browser, have come to light as part of the Justice Department’s ongoing antitrust case against the tech giant.
The emails reveal his unease over the agreement in which Google paid Apple to become the pre-selected search engine on the Safari browser. Pichai voiced concerns about the lack of choice users had in selecting their preferred search engine, reported Bloomberg.
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“I know we are insisting on default, but at the same time I think we should encourage them to have Yahoo as a choice in the pull down or some other easy option,” Pichai wrote of the deal with Apple, which is the focal point of this case. “I don’t think it is a good user experience nor the optics is great for us to be the only provider in the browser.”
This partnership between Google and Apple began in 2002, initially without a financial component, but an amendment in 2005 introduced a revenue-sharing arrangement. It expanded to include the iPhone in 2007 and the iPad in 2010.
Earlier during the trial, Apple’s service chief, Eddy Cue, cited Google’s superior search results as the reason for their partnership.
Apple proposed amendments to the deal in 2007, 2009, and 2012, seeking “more flexibility” in choosing a default search engine, said Joan Braddi, Google’s vice president for product partnerships and the key negotiator of the Apple agreement, who testified as a witness on Tuesday.
In 2014, the two tech giants signed an amendment allowing Apple to use alternative search engines in specific countries, leading to Safari using non-Google search engines in Russia, China, and South Korea, the report noted.
Why It’s Important: The DOJ filed a lawsuit in 2020, accusing the tech giant of paying over $10 billion annually to secure its position as the default search engine on web browsers and mobile devices.
Previously, while testifying, Microsoft Corporation’s MSFT CEO Satya Nadella said that his company was open to obscuring its search engine’s “Bing” brand on Apple devices to unseat Google from its default search engine status.
During the same trial, it was also revealed that Apple declined Microsoft’s offer to purchase Bing around 2020, although the Tim Cook-led company is now reportedly planning to launch its own search engine.
Photo by World Economic Forum on Flickr
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