The US Department of Justice opened an investigation against Google in January last year on the grounds of monopoly in the search engine market. Google, providing updates on the monopoly case, made striking allegations against Microsoft and Apple. Here are the details…
Google makes statement on the search engine monopoly case
In September, Bloomberg reported that Apple had held exploratory talks with Microsoft about acquiring Bing as early as 2020. This week, more details about the acquisition talks between Apple and Microsoft have emerged in newly filed court documents.
According to CNBC, these documents were processed as part of the lawsuit filed by the US Department of Justice, alleging that Google monopolizes the web search industry. In documents released to the public on Friday, Google argued that the relationship between Microsoft and Apple, including acquisition talks, is part of competition.
According to Google’s statement, Microsoft offered Bing to be the default search engine in Safari to Apple at least 7 times. It is stated that the offers made in 2009, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2018, and 2020 were rejected by Apple due to search quality.
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Google commented on the matter, stating, “In each case, Apple carefully reviewed Bing’s relative quality against Google and concluded that Google was the superior default choice for Safari users. This is part of competition, and it is the most important evidence that we do not have a monopoly in the search engine market.”
In the submission, Google also wrote that Microsoft approached Apple in 2018 to announce improvements in Bing’s search quality. However, the company claimed that Microsoft resorted to such a method to sell Bing to Apple.
Apple’s service boss Eddy Cue’s comments are included in Google’s objection:
“The quality of Microsoft’s search, their investment in search, none of it mattered much. And so, everything was lower. So the search quality wasn’t as good. They weren’t investing at the level Google or Microsoft could invest. Their ad organization and the way they made money wasn’t sustainable either.”
