On Tuesday, Eddy Cue will testify in the Department of Justice’s antitrust case against Google for alleged lawbreaking and coverup activities.
To emphasize the importance of Apple in the DOJ’s allegations against Google’s search engine practices—which include paying for preferential placement on both Apple and Android devices—Apple’s Senior Vice President of Services, Eddy Cue, is scheduled to testify as a witness at the U.S. vs. Google’s antitrust bench trial.
Bloomberg’s Leah Nylen discovered Cue’s participation in the case.
Cue is hardly the only Apple executive to give testimony. On Thursday and Friday, Apple’s AI chief and a former Google employee, John Giannandrea, testified. Giannandrea took the opportunity during his testimony to highlight a feature of Safari for iOS 17 that wasn’t covered at the time of its release. The function, which was discreetly added, gives users the option of utilizing a different browser from the one normally associated with private browsing.
Adrian Perica, Apple’s VP of Corporate Development, has also been subpoenaed to testify in the case.
The Justice Department is worried that Apple and Google are conspiring to keep prices artificially low. The DOJ contends that Apple has been hindered from competing in the search engine industry because Google is now Safari’s default search engine. Users and alternative search engines like DuckDuckGo, whose CEO testified in the trial last week, have suffered as a result of the lack of competition, as pointed out by The Verge.
The experiment has had its share of problems and is anticipated to last for 10 weeks. Apple claims that confidential information was disclosed during the opening remarks. The Cupertino tech titan responded by filing a complaint on the grounds of secrecy. According to Apple and Google, Justice Department attorney Kenneth Dintzer disclosed information on the public call that was supposed to remain private trade secrets throughout the trial.
The amount Google pays Apple to be the default search engine is unknown but acknowledged. There were reports that the real amount was closer to $9.5 billion in 2018, making the range of $4 billion to $7 billion cited in the trial seem like a low estimate.
