Apple Seeks to Hide Full Disclosure from Google due to ‘Sensitive’ Info in Antitrust Lawsuit by DOJ
An antitrust suit by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) involving Apple and Google has lived up to its name, with “trust” as a major point of contention. Attorneys for Apple requested that confidential secrets shared with the DOJ be hidden from its competitor’s in-house attorneys, in spite of the law’s typical “full disclosure” in legal cases.
The antitrust suit is ongoing by the US Justice Department because of a giant search engine pact made between Apple and Google. Currently, it is estimated Google pays Apple $8 - 12 billion dollars to fuel Apple’s in-house search engine, Safari. With this deal, the two mega-companies would most likely not only reap bigger profits but also squash the competition from other search engine firms.
At issue in the request to hide ‘sensitive’ information from Google is that Apple does not want to expose secrets to the largest search engine in the world, Alphabet Inc.’s Google, during the antitrust suit. In part, some of this information, Apple notes in its request, is “competitively sensitive material” that the company noted will lead to“material harm” to Apple, should it be disclosed.
The filing by Apple attorneys on November 30 includes an agreement to the DOJ to give access to Google’s outside lawyers reviewing the material in the lawsuit. The caveat by Apple is their request that no secrets be shared with Google’s in-house lawyers.
In court papers, attorneys said the ’sensitive’ information “would directly implicate future business dealings between Apple and Google, provide Google with a substantial advantage over Apple in negotiations, and potentially disadvantage competitor search engines that negotiate with Apple.”
The US Government is protesting this new Apple and Google deal that represents a multi-billion dollar search alliance between the two giant companies.
In court papers, The Justice Department lawsuit said Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Apple CEO Tim Cook met in person in 2018 to create the basic foundation of the new deal.
The DOJ noted in its filing that a senior employee of Apple sent an email to another employee that Apple’s “vision is that we work as if we are one company.”
The DOJ also unearthed internal documents at Google that noted if the deal did not go through, it would be a “Code Red” scenario. In total, almost 50 percent of all Google search engine traffic currently originates from Apple products.
With an alliance between the two mega-tech companies, the DOJ said in the lawsuit it would deeply impact any other Google search rivals “from an important distribution channel for a significant, multi-year term.”
Along with Apple’s request to DOJ to hide sensitive information from Google’s in-house attorneys that would cause “material harm,” there were additional filings regarding this lawsuit from companies such as AT&T Inc; Microsoft Corp.; Amazon.com Inc.; Comcast Corp.; Duck Duck Go Inc.; Oracle Corp.; Sonos Inc. and T-Mobile US Inc.
