Europe may ask Herr Google: Would you, er, snap off your search engine? Pretty please The European Parliament will reportedly consider pressuring, say, ad giant Google to snap off its search engine and move it away from its biz operations. A draft motion, seen by the Financial Times, calls for the "unbundling [of] search engines from other commercial services." The motion has the support of the two main blocs …
Actually, most people doing a web search are indirectly forced to use Google. And Yahoo. And Bing. And so on. Because all major search engines cross-reference each other. Yahoo search checks back on Google. Bing is Yahoo anyway. AskJeeves uses both to get its results, and so on.
The problem here is the weighting of the results. Google naturally wants to promote its money-making divisions, so places its own services higher up in the result listing even if they are less relevant than other companies' services. You will hardly ever do a search through Google and find Vimeo's or other online video service's items placed before YouTube offerings, even if they are clearly more relevant to the search, and the Google-internal results are often "optimised" so that any search results hosted by other companies are off the first page of results.
Most people don't even look at the second page at all. So the contention here is that Google is using its market-leading position by using simple psychology to generate more business for itself to the detriment of other companies.
If you look at the underlying situation, telling people "if you don't like it don't use it" does not work, because the average computer user does not even know there are alternatives to using Google, as evidenced by people actually saying they are going to "google" something when in fact they mean to say they are going to do a web search. Google has bought its way into many software/browser suppliers' standard search engine spot. The readership of El Reg is not anywhere near the average end-user, mind you.
Much like Microsoft promoted Internet Exploder in the 1990s by chucking it in with Windows and NT as a non-uninstallable component and pre-installed web browser, the mechanism at work is that most people simply use what is pre-installed and don't even consider the possibility that they are being ripped off. It came with the computer/browser, it works for most people's purposes (finding stuff on the 'net), and that's it.
With this, I find it nice to see that the Mozilla foundation are switching to a different default search engine, though I would personally prefer all browser suppliers to offer the user a choice of standard search engines on first use of the browser, much like Microsoft has been forced to do with browser choices for all version of Windows to be sold within the EU.
Once more, the problem is that the market position of Google is such that most people don't even know there is an alternative; the EU, if I understand it correctly, wants to find a way to remedy that. Whether the proposal discussed in the article will achieve that, I severely doubt, but it is a beginning.
Hey... Saturday already -- time for a beer.
The other problem is that most of the other search engines are pretty useless, when it comes to non-English search results. There is a reason why Google has over 95% market share over here.
The problem is, they offer so many other services and promote them (as I would guess is their right), but it stifles competition for non-search services, because they are the ones that control who sees what - a lot of people never type a URL in the URL bar, they search google for the site they want to visit.
"search results hosted by other companies"
Why would you want or expect to see results that include a page of results. This was a massive negative in Google searches (and others) for a while. These meta-searches were finally stamped out in an algorithm change and finally you got some decent results back.
I don't think anyone would say that what they want when they search for something on a search engine is a page of highly SEOed results linking through to pages more of search results that exist solely to get ad revenue or referral links.
No one who buys a Windows PC has Google as their default search enging. They choose it or choose to download Chrome.
If people don't know there is an alternative to Google that is their failing not Google's. There is a reason there is one dominate search engine, because Google is the best. And it was better long before most of the major money making services got started. Niche engines are the only viable place to compete now and that is likely how it should be.
If only I could turn off the unthinkably poisonous EU. Well done to them for crippling the economies of most euro countries so that the UK now has to pay a fine for doing better than the idiot countries held under the jackboot of the euro, better thought of as the crappo. The currency that just keeps on taking.
"NO ONE IS FORCED TO USE GOOGLE!!!"
I've said it before and I'll say it again: find me reputable websites where I can do what I need to do - shopping, banking, information lookup etc. - that aren't polluted with Google facilities (tracking, analytics, web fonts and so on), and I'll use 'em.
Like Microsoft with Windows and IE bundling back in the 90s, people are beginning to wake up to the effective monopoly Google have built up and the potential for its abuse. How about a ruling that states that Google's Chrome browser has to offer a choice of search engines? After all, this would follow the aforementioned IE bundling precedent...
So? Your point is?
Anti-pollution control conservatives in the USA are funded by the Coch brothers. Gasprom has (quite successfully) funded anti-frakking greenies in several European countries, etc.
All politics have to be funded and funding by "competition" is the usual order of the day.
In any case, Google share is likely to dip slightly over the next 5 years due to the move of Mozilla to Bing/Yahoo. In fact, I suspect that one of the reasons why Google did not give Mozilla the terms they wanted is exactly this - to create an illusion of competition in the industry.
"Google share is likely to dip slightly over the next 5 years due to the move of Mozilla to Bing/Yahoo"
If you're tech savvy enough to choose and install Firefox, then you're probably adequately aware of how good and how bad Google is. Mozilla choosing to default to crapper, but equally unprincipled search engines won't work because the likes of us already make conscious choices about our search engine.
Personally I won't have *anything* to do with Yahoo, and Bing is IMHO a second rate search offering, so it'll be straight back to DDG or Google when Mozilla rinse this change through the system, but any Firefox user who does want to use Yahoo or Bing probably already does.
If I am searching I usually want useful results not a run round someone's maze 'for the exercise'. I wonder how many have tried these second rate search engines?
When not actually searching for anything I have tried several, I suggest you try them and compare the results, or lack of them. A search engine that only finds other search engines is frankly rubbish, but there are plenty of them, unfortunately.
However, if that is what you want, good luck to you, at the moment you have the choice and so do I.
Every month or two I routinely try Google, Bing, Yahoo! and Duck Duck Go. By my judgment, the result rankings for exactly the same query typically are
1. Google
2. Bing or Duck Duck Go in variable order, and close to as good a Google.
3. Yahoo, a rather distant third.
I do not claim a great deal of validity for the sample. I only run one or two queries each time and they are random ones that I happen to be interested in at the time, and hardly ever look beyond the first page. And Adblock+ always is busy blocking whatever it does for a vanilla install. However, I never have seen Yahoo! not to be significantly poorer, or Google not the best of the lot, although on occasion Bing or Duck Duck Go have returned a list identical to Google's
I do wonder if the Mozilla people were thinking of anything beyond the size of the cash bundle.
Google should just block all European IPs for a week and let the Europols know in no uncertain terms that the populace will be made aware of who is responsible for this.
Now I wonder what the people's reaction would be: start up competing services, or lync the politicians. And if they did start up competing services, would those services be remotely as effective as Google? Would the EU, deprived of Google's capabilities suffer economically?
What is the value of Google's best in class-ness? What is the political value of letting the people use what they want? And is dealing with Europols actually worth Google's time? I'd love to know the answer to all.
I would argue that the poliltical value relates to the financial value of all those Google dollars being moved to Europe rather than in GooglesVille USA.
As a second thought, if the Euro politicians have some indirect "nudge nudge wink wink" relations with the search providers they then gain an extremely powerfull propoganda tool. As the moment Euro politicians have got no leverage over what Google displays as results and it probably drives them crazy.
"Google should just block all European IPs for a week"
... instant proof of Google's monopoly! The damage to business and commerce should easily be enough to invoke all the anticompetitive laws under the sun and ensure Google go the same way as Microsoft when they tried to bundle IE with Windows...
"... instant proof of Google's monopoly! The damage to business and commerce should easily be enough to invoke all the anticompetitive laws under the sun and ensure Google go the same way as Microsoft when they tried to bundle IE with Windows..."
Then stop all work in Europe, period. It'll take the Europeans 10 years to develop a search engine as efficient, accurate and effective as Google. 25 if the various governments insist on putting thier fingers in the creation of ht "new European search superpower". Meanwhile, Europe can limp along at a massive disadvantage to the rest of the world.
What they can't do is force Google to give up any of their technologies, or to cut off the part of their business that actually makes them money and then water it down into uselessness.
Google is American. And, like it or not, if they simply decide to abandon the European market, there's fuck all Europe can do about that. But they will fell the effects of the loss, if that's what they drive Google to do.
And, if I'm Google, I am going to be markedly disinclined to bow to European pressure to destroy my own business just because they're idiots. There are alternatives to Google. They're shit...but they're there. If the Europeans want to see Google's dominance ended the means to this is not to attempt to drive Google out of business, but instead to help Microsoft - who is the real force behind all of this anyways - do the research and development necessary to suck less.
Google is not a monopoly like "my local cableco is a monopoly". Users have choice. But they overwhelmingly choose Google because Google is massively superior to the alternatives. There is absolutely nothing preventing people from choosing Bing, or $spam_site, excepting that these users want a service that will enhance their internet usage and not degrade it.
The European solution is fucking batshit insane. Rather than work to raise all competitors to the level of Google so that we have multiple excellent choices, they are adamant that they must degrade Google until it is as shit as everyone else. That's the exact fucking wrong way to go about this.
I am normally a supporter of the EU. But in this case, I say to Google: pull your services out and knock the arrogant peckerheads into their next depression. Maybe they'll learn that excellence in industry is more important than political grandstanding or little brown envelopes.
Maybe.
What is the commission so upset about? If consumers didn't like what Google was doing they wouldn't use it, its trivial to switch. The law should be used to protect consumers, not failing corporations. Are they watching out for consumers or attempting to use the legal system to prop up Google's competitors?
The problem is not that search users don' t have a choice, they do. The problem is that Google's dominance means that if your site does not turn up among the top results on Google search it is as if it didn't exist; there is a huge impact on third parties (other than Google and the user of their search, that is). This becomes a competition issue when Google uses its search to promote its other sevices (or potentially whenever it deviates from 'organic' results for other reasons).
I agree with the EU that Google prioritize their own results above others.
e.g. Search for a movie https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=interstellar#hl=en&q=interstellar+movie and there is a special Google service only box to find the film times - with a text entry field for city! Nobody else can get a text entry field on Google.com for their service.
Hotels https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=interstellar#hl=en&q=hotels+in+new+york
See the special "Hotels in New York on Google", unlike anything any competitor can add to the page.
Mapping https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=interstellar#hl=en&q=map+of+canada&spell=1
You get a freaking great graphical map of Canada filling most of the page linking to Google Maps. No competing product until way way below the fold.
This annoys me as a user - Google's services are often better now, but they're not always under all circumstances. They should have a marketplace for these special user interface popups, not just put their own in.
Whether they should be broken up is a more complex question. I'd say they should voluntarily break themselves up, as otherwise they'll get lazy over time, and somebody will beat them.
And they need to sell advertising to fund the search engine.
How exactly do the EU think the worlds largest (and arguably best) search is supposed to be funded?
Or is their next proposal a splurge of billions of Euros of tax payers money to set up an unwanted euoogle search engine, to be what Gallieo will be to GPS. With the added disadvantage it can bend completely to the will of the EU over crazy legislation, such as the right to be forgotten?
Sometimes it seems they have already bent too far over. I agree, that they are becoming too big for their boots in many respects and abusing their position and ignoring the law in many instances.
But their search seems to be becoming worse and worse.
If I do a search for problems or handbooks for specific devices, I usually end up with 2 pages of online shop offers and price comparison sites, before I get any results that are at all in context with the search term!
Googles search is becoming worse and worse for you as the EUC decides to make unreasonable and illegal demands on a privately owned corporation. It will become even worse specifically for Europeans as the EUC make Google remove the functionality in an attempt to make them less capable than their "competition".
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