Google’s Pichai worried over ‘bad optics,’ poor ‘user experience’ with search engine deal with Apple

Google’s Sundar Pichai raised concerns years before he became the company’s chief executive officer that its deal with Apple had “bad optics” and negatively impacted user experience because there was no choice of which search engine to use in the company’s web browser.
DOJ antitrust lawsuit targets Google’s multibillion-dollar default search pact with Apple
Leah Nylen for Bloomberg News:
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Emails Pichai wrote in 2007 to Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, among other executives, were introduced as evidence in the Justice Department’s antitrust case against Alphabet Inc.’s Google, which is underway in Washington. The emails, written when Pichai was in charge of Google’s Chrome browser, show concerns about the company’s agreement to pay Apple in exchange for being the pre-selected search option on the Safari browser.
“I know we are insisting on default, but at the same time I think we should encourage them to have Yahoo as a choice in the pull down or some other easy option,” Pichai wrote of the agreement, which is at the center of the government’s case. “I don’t think it is a good user experience nor the optics is great for us to be the only provider in the browser.”

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MacDailyNews Take: We use and recommend DuckDuckGo. As we wrote back in 2019:
If you haven’t already, give DuckDuckGo a try today!

Apple allows users to easily switch to the privacy-respecting DuckDuckGo search engine on Safari:
macOS:
1. Click Safari in the top menu bar.
2. Select Preferences.
3. Click on Search.
4. Select DuckDuckGo.
iOS:
1. Open Settings.
2. Navigate to and tap on Safari.
3. Tap on Search Engine.
4. Select DuckDuckGo.
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