Apple, Google Agreed to ‘Defend’ Search Deal From Regulators

  • Companies revised contract as governments scrutinized browsers
  • Apple’s Eddy Cue testifies about deal during antitrust trial
Apple’s Eddy Cue is set to testify at the Google antitrust trial.Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
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Apple Inc.’s lucrative agreement to use Alphabet Inc.’s Google as the default search engine for the iPhone includes a provision that the two tech giants will “support and defend” the deal against government scrutiny, a top Apple executive said at an antitrust trial.

Their longtime contract was renegotiated in 2016 to include the provision, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Services Eddy Cue disclosed Tuesday in a Washington federal court, where the US government is pressing its claim that Google operates a monopoly in the search business.