Longtime Apple executive Eddy Cue defended the corporate’s deal to maintain Google because the default search engine on its smartphones and browsers during his closely watched testimony on the Big Tech firm’s antitrust trial on Tuesday.
Cue, Apple’s senior vp of services and an in depth confidant of CEO Tim Cook, was arguably probably the most high-profile witness thus far on the trial, where Google has faced intense scrutiny over its top-dollar payments to secure default status.
Google may very well be paying as much as $19 billion per 12 months to secure default status on Apple devices, based on estimates by wealth management firm Bernstein cited by CNBC.
Cue told the court that Apple had chosen Google as its default search engine since it was far and away one of the best available option for its devices.
“There actually wasn’t a sound alternative we might have gone to on the time,” Cue testified in Washington, D.C., based on Bloomberg.
He added that Apple has had no have to develop its own in-house search engine attributable to the standard of Google’s product.
Cue’s testimony backed a key defense by Google’s lawyers, who say consumers go for the corporate’s search engine since it is a high-quality service.
Justice Department attorneys have said Google spends greater than $10 billion on annual payments to numerous partners, including Apple and mobile carriers like AT&T and Verizon, to realize dominance over online search.
The Apple bigwig also testified that a clause in its deal with Google states that Big Tech firms will “support and defend” the pact against legal threats.
Cue admitted that Google’s legal team pushed for the clause’s inclusion during contract renegotiations in 2016.
Google became the default search engine on Apple’s Safari browser in 2002 and has kept that status ever since.
Cue said the deal was most recently renewed in 2021, based on Bloomberg.
Much of Cue’s testimony was conducted in a closed-court session since it pertained to sensitive information related to the businesses’ operations.
Google retains a roughly 90% market share, dwarfing all other rivals. Gabriel Weinberg, the founding father of privacy-focused search engine DuckDuckGo, previously testified that Google’s default deals with leading smartphone makers and mobile carriers had
He’s the second Apple executive to testify on the trial, following last week’s appearance by Apple’s artificial intelligence boss John Giannandrea.
The antitrust trial, which kicked off its third week, has faced criticism over an absence of public transparency.
Last week, the DOJ yanked trial exhibits it had published to a public website after Google complained to the trial’s presiding Judge Amit Mehta.