Google’s Ties With Apple Under Spotlight in Antitrust Trial
The Department of Justice’s case against the search giant is the first test of Silicon Valley’s dominance since a landmark decision against Microsoft more than 20 years ago.
One of the defining relationships in modern Silicon Valley is the interaction between Apple and Google. For decades the companies have mixed intense competition—Apple Inc. co-founder Steve Jobs once famously threatened to wage “thermonuclear war” on Google over its entry into the smartphone business—with enthusiastic collaboration. Since 2005, Google has paid Apple billions of dollars to be the default search engine on its Safari web browser, a deal that’s brought the two trillion-dollar corporations together in ways that have raised eyebrows in Washington. “Our vision is that we work as if we are one company,” wrote a senior Apple employee to a Google counterpart following a 2018 meeting to help make the pact more profitable.
That message is part of a trove of potentially damning internal communications coming to light as part of the US Department of Justice’s antitrust case against Alphabet Inc.’s Google, where the government accuses the search giant of freezing out competitors through deals like the one it has with Apple. The trial marks the first time since the case against Microsoft Corp. more than two decades ago that allegations of anticompetitive behavior in Silicon Valley will be hashed out in federal court.