Email reveals Google CEO's worries about optics on Apple deal

Sundar Pichai was so concerned about how its multi-billion lock-out deal with Apple looked that he emailed Larry and Sergey

Google CEO Sundar Pichai was so concerned about the optics of its multi-billion deal dollar with Apple that locked out competitors that he emailed Larry and Sergey.

The US antitrust trial was yesterday presented with emails Pichai sent to the Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin back in 2007 when he headed the Chrome browser division.

Pichai wrote:

“I know we are insisting on default, but at the same time I think we should encourage them to have Yahoo as a choice in the pull down or some other easy option.

“I don’t think it is a good user experience nor the optics is great for us to be the only provider in the browser.”

The court has heard Google locked up access to 90% of search queries through exclusive deals with Android, Samsung and with rival Apple to be the default search engine on iPhone and Safari.

These deals - made up of an annual fee of between $10 and $19 billion-a-year - before additional income from 40% rev shares on search revenues are at the heart of the case.

The d…