Is Apple Speeding Up Search Engine Development As Google Comes Under Increased Antitrust Scrutiny?

Apple may be stepping up efforts to develop its own search engine. “They have a credible team that I think has the experience and the depth, if they wanted to, to build a more general search engine,” said Bill Coughran, Google’s former engineering chief and now partner at Silicon Valley investor Sequoia Capital, while speaking with FT. Have You Google Vs US In An Era When Users Can Download Apps Instantly, Unlike The Dial-Up Age Of 1990 It is important to note that Apple hired then Google’s head of search John Giannandrea. In the complaint, the Department of Justice refers to how Google maintained its search and search advertising monopolies by entering into exclusivity agreements that forbid preinstallation of any competing search service, entering into tying and other arrangements that force preinstallation of its search applications in prime locations on mobile devices and make them undeletable, regardless of consumer preference, entering into long-term agreements with Apple that require Google to be the default – and de facto exclusive – general search engine on Apple’s popular Safari browser and other Apple search tools as well as generally using monopoly profits to buy preferential treatment for its search engine on devices, web browsers, and other search access points, creating a continuous and self-reinforcing cycle of monopolization. They also point out that Google search or any other Google product aren’t preloaded on Microsoft Windows 10 devices because Microsoft preloads the Edge web browser with their own Bing search engine as default. It is still too early to say whether Apple will indeed scale up the search engine efforts to the extent where it can compete with Google directly in the search space.