Apple, Google and a Deal that Controls the Internet

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

Apple, Google and a Deal That Controls the Internet:

OAKLAND, Calif. - When Tim Cook and Sundar Pichai, the chief executives of Apple and Google, were photographed eating dinner together in 2017 at an upscale Vietnamese restaurant called Tamarine, the picture set off a tabloid-worthy frenzy about the relationship between the two most powerful companies in Silicon Valley.

As the two men sipped red wine at a window table inside the restaurant in Palo Alto, their companies were in tense negotiations to renew one of the most lucrative business deals in history: an agreement to feature Google's search engine as the preselected choice on Apple's iPhone and other devices. The updated deal was worth billions of dollars to both companies and cemented their status at the top of the tech industry's pecking order.

Now, the partnership is in jeopardy. Last Tuesday, the Justice Department filed a landmark lawsuit against Google - the U.S. government's biggest antitrust case in two decades - and homed in on the alliance as a prime example of what prosecutors say are the company's illegal tactics to protect its monopoly and choke off competition in web search.

The scrutiny of the pact, which was first inked 15 years ago and has rarely been discussed by either company, has highlighted the special relationship between Silicon Valley's two most valuable companies - an unlikely union of rivals that regulators say is unfairly preventing smaller companies from flourishing.

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