The Federal Trade Commission is looking at it as a possible breach of antitrust laws, but Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google, is adamant that he won’t quit his position on the board of Apple.
Schmidt said:
"If there are issues on competitiveness, I recuse myself."
And those issues are definitely there, given that Google has the Chrome and Android OS, while Apple offers Safari – he also leaves the boardroom when talk turns to the iPhone.
"From my perspective I don’t think Google sees Apple as a primary competitor," he told journalists prior to addressing Google shareholders, according to the BBC. Google’s legal counsel, Kent Walker, noted:
