Shares in Google parent Alphabet plunged more than 7% on May 7 after an Apple executive told a federal court that the search engine’s traffic fell on Apple products. Photo / AFP
Shares in Google parent Alphabet plunged more than 7% on Wednesday after an Apple executive told a federal court that the search engine’s traffic fell on Apple products last month.
Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice-president of services, testified at an antitrust trial in Washington that Google search volume was losing traffic to AI alternatives such as ChatGPT or Perplexity, according to US media reports.
“That has never happened in 20 years,” legal news outlet MLex quoted him as saying.
Cue was giving testimony in a trial in which US Judge Amit Mehta will determine how Google must address his landmark ruling last year that it operates an illegal monopoly in online search.