Google’s exclusive contracts hindered DuckDuckGo’s ability to pitch browsers becoming the default for their private browsing modes, CEO Gabriel Weinberg testified Thursday.
DuckDuckGo is a privacy focused search engine and competitor to Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG)'s Google. Weinberg testified as part of the antitrust case against Google brought by the US Department of Justice.
The DOJ and a group of state attorneys general allege that Google violated antitrust laws by signing exclusive deals with exclusivity contracts, which made it the default search engine on Apple’s Safari browser and on phones that use Google’s Andriod operating system.
In the case of DuckDuckGo, Weinberg said he pitched to various companies that many consumers don’t realize that private browsing modes aren’t nearly as private as they think. DuckDuckGo, he argued, would make a great alternative.
“We really took that pitch pretty far and wide,” Weinberg said. But the company “hit an obstacle” when faced with Google’s exclusivity deals.
“It was a quixotic exercise,” Weinberg added.
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