Apple, Google and a deal that controls the internet

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.

The search market is entirely locked down. I'm a DuckDuckGo user, but DDG is just a frontend to Bing, warts and all. I've been having very negative experiences with DDG lately, but the only other real option is Google - I've got nowhere else to go. So either I accept Google's filter bubble, or I accept DDG having terrible results filled with crazy conspiracy pseudoscience.

What choice do we really have?