The US government’s antitrust case against Google resumed with company CEO Sundar Pichai’s testimony during which several new facts were uncovered. It included why Google pays Apple billions of dollars to keep it as the default search engine and its plans for the iPhone maker regarding search.
One of the things that came to fore during Pichai’s testimony was that Google agreed to not promote Chrome web browser to those using Safari on Apple devices. But it could do it by other means including banners in other Google apps, pop-ups and the like, The Verge reported.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s testimony
The topic was touched upon by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella in testimony that Apple might have feared what Google would do if it lost default status on iOS devices. Nadella said that Google could have used its popular services, like Gmail and YouTube to push users to download Chrome, which could have resulted in people circumventing the Safari browser entirely.
Google, Apple CEOs meet
Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Apple CEO Tim Cook met once a year to discuss the search deal. It was revealed that Pichai pitched an idea to Cook about pre-installing the Search app, and probably a native widget, on every iOS device. Google also reportedly promised to maintain the built-in Google service for 20 years.
Pichai said that since pre-installing the Search app on Android phones and widget were driving more search queries, it also wanted to do the same with Apple.
“We said one of the things that works well on Android, which drives increased usage, is a Google Search application. So I proposed that we could build a Google search application for iOS… and we would be committed to supporting the product for many years,” Pichai said.
Apple did agree because it does not preload third-party software on its devices. Cook, however, told Pichai he wanted to be “deep, deep partners, deeply connected where our services end and yours begin”.
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