The CEO of Google, Sundar Pichaisaid that the fact that Google has exclusivity as the default search engine on iPhones and all Apple products give a “bad impression”. Or at least, he said so several years ago, when he was not yet at the helm of the Mountain View company. But his statements, which recently emerged in a trial, could also have an impact in the near future.
Google and the exclusive search for iPhone, also criticized by the CEO
During the recent antitrust trial against the US Department of Justice, an email correspondence from Google CEO Sundar Pichai also attracted the interest of the press. The email, dated 2007, Pichai sent it when he was still running the Chrome ai team co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
Pichai expressed concern about Google being the only default search option in Apple’s Safari browser. He considered it a “bad impression” (“bad optics” in the original) and not a good user experience.
This view from the current CEO of Google seems confirm the Justice Department’s claims according to which Google exercises a illegal monopoly in the online search sector.
A de facto monopoly?
As Bloomberg reports, the lawsuit seeks to verify whether Google exercises a monopoly on the search sector on Apple devices, in particular on iPhones. One of the issues to be resolved is that Google would pay a significant amount of money to be the default search engine for Apple devices. Go to Brad, a Google executive, confirmed that Google actually pays a large sum of money to maintain these exclusive deals. “It hasn’t always been like this, but today it has been,” he confirmed.
Google argued during the trial Don’t exercise a monopoly on online searchclaiming that users can easily change the default settings. However, both rivals and the Justice Department have disputed this claim, arguing that Google makes it difficult to switch from Google to another option.
The CEO of Microsoft, Satya Nadella, also highlighted that Google dominates the market and that rivals like Bing have little chance of gaining market share. Recently, it emerged that Microsoft was on the verge of selling Bing to Apple, specifically so that it would become the default search engine for iPhones. But Apple doubted it could compete with Google.
Sundar Pichai’s statements could have a bearing on the court’s decision, which could force Apple to provide alternatives for online searching on your devices. But we won’t know until a possible conviction: we will keep you updated.
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Android HeadlinesBloomberg