Antitrust: a class-action targets the integration of the Google search engine in Apple products

This is not the first time (and probably not the last) that a class action has targeted the default integration of the search engine of Google in products Apple (via Safari). New class action lawsuits filed in U.S. court say Apple-Google deal violates antitrust laws (Sherman Antitrust Act) and slows down the appearance of competing search engines on Apple’s platforms (iOS, iPadOS and macOS).

The complaint recalls that Google is spending billions of dollars to take pride of place in Safari (default engine), a strategy that would reduce competition on engines and automatically increase advertising prices. But there is more: the antitrust complaint indeed seems to use the Apple-Google agreement as a pretext to aim for a much more radical objective, namely the splitting up of Apple and Google into “Separate and independent companies in accordance with the precedent of the split of Standard Oil into Exxon, Mobile, Conoco, Amoco, Sohio, Chevron and others”.

Finally, we note that the title of the complaint contains some obvious errors: Apple does have its own advertising network despite the agreement with Google, as well as its own search engine that it uses moreover with Siri and the Spotlight tool.