According to documents revealed in the Google antitrust court case, Apple‘s executives accused the search engine giant of privacy violations years ago. The U.S. Department of Justice has recently released new documents from the Google antitrust case, and one of these documents pertains to an internal conference that includes details from an email sent by an Apple executive to Tim Cook in 2013. The document discusses the ways Apple competes with Google to maintain user privacy. The most prominent point in this email is a slide that states, “Android is a massive tracking device.”
In another slide, Apple explains that its approach to protecting user privacy is superior to Google’s. Apple claims to collect data only when it leads to an improved customer experience, while Google collects data from all apps. For example, Google’s voice search is linked to a user’s Google account, while user data in Siri (Apple’s digital assistant) only communicates with the assistant itself.
These slide details were part of the testimony of Eddie Cue, Apple’s senior vice president, during the Google antitrust trial in September. The Department of Justice has accused Google of using exclusive contracts with phone manufacturers to control the search engine market and appear as the default search engine on their products. It was previously reported that Google pays Apple between $18 to $20 billion annually to remain the default search engine on iPhones.
Despite Apple describing Android as a “massive tracking device,” an internal email from 2016 about an agreement between Apple and Google suggests that Apple wanted a two-way data-sharing arrangement with Google.
In that email, Google’s CEO wrote, “They’ve told Apple that Google doesn’t share information about user clicks on the search engine.” However, in response to that email, Apple proposed a data exchange that was partially redacted. This proposal raises questions about the information Google may share with Apple about its users.
