About a year and a half ago, Google started auction the possibility of being one of the search engines that European users do could choose by default on Android devices. And, over the last year and a half, we’ve seen some ad-oriented family giants continue to take these slots faces.
This auction was the result of a massive antitrust case led by European authorities in 2018. Aside from ending the company with a $ 5 billion fine, regulators also demanded that Google start offering users an option when launching their Android phones in terms of browser or the search appliance they prefer to use, instead of forcing them to use Google’s own. Google obligatory, but in the most Google-like way: requiring competitors to financially fund the opportunity to appear in one of the four search spaces on the coveted Android screen.
He results for the last auction they are less than promising. When it comes to elections, the truth is that tens of millions of Android users will choose, in large part, from one of the four non-Google options when searching: Bing, GMX, owned by Microsoft, owned by the German digital giant United Internet AG, or with the ironic name of PrivacyWall, which belongs to an important advertising equipment called Social media.
Like TechCrunch points out, the only thing all these players have in common is to get huge benefits from tracking and targeting users through search, in a surprisingly similar way to Google. In the meantime, it’s worth noting that despite these other options, the search giant is still a search giant in the region. Aside from swallowing the majority of the international search engine market, Google does almost that more than 85% of the market share of the member countries of the European Union.
When asked about the European Union’s failure to curb Google’s behavior in the region, previously some of Google’s search competitors he said in the Washington Post that this was the natural result of letting Google solve its own problems. In other words, the EU authorities are literally leaving Google charge its rivals for the privilege of appearing on the Android selection menu and challenging the company’s dominant position in the process. Who did they think would win?
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