Apple considered, rejected switch to DuckDuckGo from Google

The US Justice Department alleges that Google has paid billions of dollars to Apple and others to be the default search engine on web browsers and smartphones. Those deals kept other search engines, like Microsoft’s Bing and DuckDuckGo, from building up users and becoming rivals to Google, according to federal and state antitrust enforcers. — Photo by Dawit on Unsplash

Apple Inc held talks with DuckDuckGo to replace Alphabet Inc’s Google as the default search engine for the private mode on Apple’s Safari browser, but ultimately rejected the idea.

The details of those talks – and Apple’s discussions about buying Microsoft Corp’s Bing search engine in 2018 and 2020 – were revealed late Wednesday in transcripts unsealed by the judge overseeing the US government’s antitrust trial against Google.