Behind the scenes, Apple has shown interest in Microsoft’s Bing and DuckDuckGo

Privacy-focused search engine Duck Duck Go

The judge had announced on Wednesday that he would order testimony from DuckDuckGo Chief Executive Officer Gabriel Weinberg and Apple executive John Giannandre to be unsealed. The pair previously testified in closed sessions. Judge Mehta ruled Wednesday that Weinberg and Giannandrea’s testimony “goes to the heart of the case.”

According to Weinberg, DuckDuckGo and Apple had 20 meetings and phone conversations that included the head of Safari. The idea was to replace Google with DuckDuckGo as the default search engine for the Safari browser’s private browsing mode. In this mode, Safari doesn’t keep track of the websites that a person visits.

Apple executive claims that Duck Duck Go’s privacy-first reputation is a marketing ploy

Weinberg did say that Apple integrated some of DuckDuckGo’s other privacy features into Safari but always came up short when it came to search. The executive says, “We were talking about it, I thought they would launch it. Multiple times we’ve gotten integrations all the way through the finish line. Really, almost everything we’ve pitched except for search.”

The Apple executive said that DuckDuckGo probably isn’t into privacy as much as its marketing would have everyone believe. Since DuckDuckGo relies on Bing for its search information, Giannandrea says that the search engine firm’s “marketing about privacy is somewhat incongruent with the details.” The executive added that if Apple is serious about switching to the privacy-oriented search engine, “I would probably insist on doing a lot more due diligence with DuckDuckGo.”