The battle between Apple and Google has been on since the beginning, and although they have accused and criticised each other of many things, one thing that Apple has constantly accused Google of doing, is constantly tracking its users. In an internal email sent by Eddy Cue to Apple CEO Tim Cook in 2013, the former has accused Google of using their Android platform as a massive tracking device.
This email has been used in the ongoing anti-trust lawsuit that has been going on against Google, for it’s dominance and monopoly in the search engine market. This domination is still going strong, despite Microsoft Bing trying to chip away at it, thanks to the new partnership with OpenAI. The trial has revealed some sensational information, including the fact that Google spent an eyebrow raising $26 Billion in 2021, to become the default search engine on almost every device and platform. Apple has allaged that they too were offered a payout by the Search Engine giant, to become the go-to search engine on their devices.
In the presentation put forward by the United States Department of Justice, one of the slides that has been redacted shows a comparison between Apple and Google, with the former being praised for the fact that they allow users to use different accounts for iCloud, the App Store, and the iTunes Store. The presentation goes on to call out some tech giants for flouting simple ethical practices. For example, Facebook was criticised for tracking users even if they opted out of the same. Google was called out for recording Wi-Fi commuinications, Amazon was called out for routing Kindle browser traffic through their own servers, while Instagram was heavily criticised for its plans to use the photos posted on its platform for their ads.
The case is ongoing, and we expect to see the official judgement to come out sometime in early 2024. If Google is found guilty of paying their way to become the default search engine, things could change drastically in the tech world moving forward.
Do you think Google is guilty of paying their way to relevance? Let us know in the comments.
