WASHINGTON: A top executive at Apple said on Tuesday he believed that Google’s search engine was the best product for its customers as he took the stand at a landmark antitrust trial.

Google is facing prosecution by the US Justice Department on grounds that it illegally used its dominant position in online search to prevent the emergence of rivals.

At the heart of the case is Google’s relationship with Apple and the special deals between the two behemoths that make the search engine the default browser on Apple’s Safari browser.

“I don’t think there is anyone out there that is as good as Google in searching,” Eddy Cue, Apple’s Senior Vice president for services, told the courtroom as the trial went into its third week.

“There wasn’t a viable alternative to Google at that time. And going with any other was never something that we ever truly considered,” he added.

Cue was referring to a series of agreements that began in 2002 and have seen Google pay Apple billions of dollars for the prominent place on its hardware.

Published in Dawn, September 27th, 2023