Business Between DuckDuckGo And Apple Ever Failed Because Of Google

DuckDuckGo, their business talks with Apple about a potential contract failed due to Google. (photo: twitter @DuckDuckGo)

JAKARTA - CEO of a privacy-oriented search engine, DuckDuckGo, said that their business talks with Apple regarding potential contracts failed. This happened because the smartphone maker was reluctant to sacrifice billions of dollars in revenue from Google. This is according to a new transcript of the antitrust trial of one of the Alphabet units.

Gabriel Weinberg, who is also the founder of DuckDuckGo, testified on September 21 about the impact of annual payments of 10 billion dollars (Rp156.3 trillion) from Google to smartphone manufacturers and other parties to make their search engine a default option on mobile computers or devices.

The previously undisclosed transcript on Wednesday night 4 October shows that DuckDuckGo reached an agreement with Apple in 2014 to be one of the options on Apple devices. Shortly after, DuckDuckGo began encouraging Apple to be the default option for users looking to maintain privacy, which limits user data collection.

App makers are looking for options to be the default application options in their respective regions, be it searches, maps, or something else, because many users cannot or are reluctant to change default settings.

Weinberg said that Apple appeared "very interested" in 2016. Even executives of the two companies held meetings in 2017 and 2018 to discuss changes to make DuckDuckGo a default option in privacy mode. DuckDuckGo itself has about 2.5% of the search market share, according to his testimony.

During the meeting, Weinberg said that Apple's executives often brought up problems with its distribution agreement with Google that might block the changes. According to Weinberg, the potential deal failed in 2019, as Google paid Apple a high price.

Apple's John Giannandrea, who is responsible for its machine learning strategy and artificial intelligence, testified in a closed manner which was also disclosed late Wednesday. He also testified in September that Apple had considered Bing and Google with the intention of playing the two sides.

Giannandrea testified about Apple's consideration of buying Bing or using it as a default search engine instead of Google, an idea opposed to the lower quality Bing search results.

The United States Department of Justice says that Google, which has about 90% of its search market share, pays around $10 billion per year to Apple, another smartphone manufacturer, and other parties to become a default search engine. This influence in search engines has made Google the biggest player in the lucrative advertising market, even increasing its profits.