Google’s billion-dollar payouts got in the way of a deal with Apple: DuckDuckGo CEO

Gabriel Weinberg, the CEO of privacy-oriented search engine DuckDuckGo, said its talks with Apple about a potential contract failed because the smartphone maker was reluctant to give up Google’s multibillion-dollar paychecks, according to new transcripts of a landmark antitrust trial of the Alphabet unit.

Weinberg, who also founded the company, testified on September 21 on the effect on DuckDuckGo of Google’s $10 billion in annual payments to smartphone makers and others to keep its search engine as the default on computers or mobile devices.