Senior Vice President of Services AppleEddy Cue, has confirmed that “there are several reasons” why he is not considering launching his own search engine to replace the one he currently uses on his devices by default, developed by Google.
In recent years, sources close to the Cupertino company have told media outlets such as the Financial Times or The Information that Apple was working on its own search engine, to stop depending on Google and avoid possible damages due to the antitrust trial in which the Mountain View firm is involved.
In addition to considering this alternative, Apple would also have considered establishing commercial agreements with other search engine development companies, such as Microsoft with Bing or DuckDuckGo, to incorporate their services into its browser, Safari.
Now, due to the investigations that are being carried out as part of the process by which Google is accused of anti-competitive practices and To “help craft a fair trial,” Apple Senior Vice President of Services Eddy Cue has signed a statement to the US District Court for the District of Columbia.
In this document, to which media such as MacRumors and The Verge have had access, he has defended that, despite the fact that the Google engine is established by default on devices in the United States as part of the Information Services Agreement that it maintains with Google, users can choose alternatives such as Yahoo!, Microsoft Bing, DuckDuckGo or Ecosia to perform their searches.
Likewise, he has stressed that, in exchange for distributing his search engine on their devices, Google shares a percentage of the revenue generated by these searches with Apple and Apple, in turn, has revenue sharing agreements with the aforementioned search engines.
With this, he has assessed that if the Court prohibits Google from sharing the income from the distribution of searches, Apple would face two situations. For example, Google access to iPhone users “at no cost” or the removal of Google Search from Safari.
In response to this, understand that “One of the remedies proposed by the plaintiffs” is for Apple to develop its own search engine, which, Cue has acknowledged, “is unlikely.” Thus, he pointed out in this letter that “there are several reasons why Apple does not plan to create a search engine”, which he explained below.
The first of these is due to the fact that the technology company “focuses on other areas of growth” apart from the development of a search engine, which “would require diverting both capital investment and employees, would cost billions of dollars and would take many years” of work.
He has also noted that search is evolving due to Artificial Intelligence (AI), which “makes it economically risky to dedicate the enormous resources that would be required to create a search engine” by Apple.
Finally, Cue has stressed that a viable search engine would require building a platform “to sell targeted advertising, which is not one of Apple’s main activities” and that the firm “does not have the capacity, volume of specialized professionals and a notable operational infrastructure necessary.” to create and manage a successful advertising business.”