Emails Pichai wrote in 2007 to Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, among other executives, were introduced as evidence in the Justice Department’s antitrust case against Alphabet Inc.’s Google, which is underway in Washington. The emails, written when Pichai was in charge of Google’s Chrome browser, show concerns about the company’s agreement to pay Apple in exchange for being the pre-selected search option on the Safari browser.
“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,” Pichai wrote of the agreement, which is at the center of the government’s case. “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.”
