Apple argues in court that there wasn’t a valid alternative

Duck DuckGo or Google? Eddy Cue’s question and Apple’s response to the tech giant’s criticism of its search engine

After that, the courtroom closed again, and Cue’s testimony continued in private. Unlike many things in a trial, the star witness was kept under wraps due to complaints about revealing confidential numbers and corporate secrets. The questions the DOJ is going to keep asking are the same ones that were put to Cue: is GOOGLE really thebest search engine, or is it just the one writing the biggest checks? And if those checks went away, what would the search engine market look like? Cue said Apple’s never really thought about it. The Justice Department is going to keep asking and so have other people.

As of last week, it has been suggested that Apple’s browser doesn’t favor the search giant as much as the Justice Department claimed. According to him, there is a setting for selecting a second search engine besides Google in the newest edition of the mobile operating system. That makes switching between engines potentially easier.

Google has argued that its search engine’s quality — not its deals with Apple, Mozilla, and a variety of Android phone makers and wireless carriers — is responsible for its dominance. Bing is placed on the Windows operating system as the default search engine and this hasn’t given it a strong boost in the market.

Weinberg claims that Duck DuckGo made a “quixotic” attempt to have its privacy-focused search engine used in browsers’ incognito mode but was stymied by the deals that were made with Google. Google, for its part, noted that DuckDuckGo has failed to get a boost from European laws that require users to pick a search engine — although Weinberg countered by claiming the choice screens were designed poorly.

There has been a high level of privacy surrounding the company’s economic dealings. Judge Mehta stated before the trial that he planned to be conservative when it came to allowing potentially sensitive details to reach the public. Mehta expressed displeasure after the Justice Department posted online copies of some exhibits seen in public court sessions, leading the department to take the documents offline while negotiating an agreement with Google to continue posting them. Last week, a resolution to the dispute was expected but never reached, and we may see that on Tuesday.

Eddy Cue, in a dark suit, peered down at the monitor in front of him. The courtroom in Washington, DC had temporarily malfunctioned, leaving witnesses with binders, but now the tech was up and running and showing an image of three iPhones, each demonstrating a part of the phone’s setup process. Affirmatively squinted down at the screen.

He said that the resolution on this was terrible. “You should get a Mac.” That got some laughs in the courtroom. The judge’s answer got even funnier when he said, “If Apple would like to make a donation…” Everybody got back to work.

Cue had two messages: Apple believes in protecting its users’ privacy, and it also believes in Google. Whether those two statements can be simultaneously true became the question of the day.

Bellshaw never quite said it, but the DOJ’s implication seemed to be that, essentially, Google is a privacy menace anathema to everything Apple believes is important to its users, but Apple gives it a central place in its platform because Google pays it so handsomely. Cue was asked to look at Apple’s financial documents. Isn’t it true that the ISA represents a significant portion of Apple’s profits, she asked? Cue said that’s not how Apple looks at it because it doesn’t account for all the work Apple did to make its platform so appealing that an agreement like this could work as well as it does.

The phone setup process was the subject of many questions. Those three screenshots showed the Appearance screen that shows up when you first boot up your iPhone so you can pick font sizes; the location-tracking prompt that appears when you open Maps; and the App Tracking Transparency pop-up that tells you when an app wants to collect your data. Bell Shaw pointed out that Apple has a choice about many things, big and small, and that search could be one of them.