Search Wars: How Google is close to losing it
Why One Search Engine Can’t Have It All
Top 5 Things People Fear Most
Public Speaking. ...
Heights. ...
Going to the dentist. ...
Snakes. ...
Flying. ...
Last afternoon, when I was feeling a little lazy and extra-curious, I powered up Google and typed ‘what are the five big things that most people are really scared of’….. I was a little disappointed that spiders and cockroaches did not make it to the top 5, but snakes have wiggled their way in.
Once I was done looking up for 5 things people fear the most, I got thinking again. I powered up Google and typed ‘5 foods children dislike the most’ and here’s what I got. Milk, spinach, mushrooms, water, and tofu. Water (really?), milk and spinach (I understand).
While I was indulging in my top 5 curious list of things, something else caught my attention. The search engine I was using (Google) had been sued by the Justice Department of the United States of America. (for a minute, I thought Google was being sued for throwing up wrong search results - like the one that claims that lots of children don’t like water).
Here’s what the newspaper headline read like - The Department of Justice is proposing a series of sanctions against Google to ensure that it can no longer monopolize the search engine market.
I thought most people use Google because they LIKE to use it. How can any court of law accuse Google for building a really nice search engine that lots and lots of people like? Apparently, things aren’t as simple as they appear to be. There’s lots more to the story.
Every week on the Lighter Side, I write one news story from the real world. This week’s story is about Google and why some people are beginning to wonder if this company has used some ‘not so pretty’ means to become the most dominant search engine in the world.
Also, we are reading the book ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’ from the Chronicles of Narnia series. If you / anyone you know is between 8-15 yrs old and would like to join me in a podcast where we review the book, here’s where you can register
What the US Justice Department is accusing Google of
What the government’s lawyers argue - When we buy smartphones (whether they be made by Apple or Xiaomi or Samsung), these phone makers have made a deal with Google - that Google will be the default search engine on their phones. In turn, Google pays billions of dollars to these phone companies. This is why if you tried searching for anything on your phone, the results would always be visible on a Google page. These exclusive deals make it hard for other search engines (e.g. Duck Duck Go, Bing, Yahoo) to compete. That also means that consumers have fewer options.
What Google’s lawyers argue - They believe that these deals are fair and companies like Samsung / Apple chose to agree to them (nobody forced these phone companies to make Google the default search engine). Google also argued that its search engine is the most popular because it is the best product out there and that people prefer it. Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai testified "We want to make it very, very seamless and easy for users to use our service," Pichai said.
What Google’s competitors say - The search engine DuckDuckGo is a much smaller rival to Google. In a blog post last month, CEO Gabriel Weinberg wrote that “Google likes to claim everyone chooses Google, but most consumers don’t: They just go with the default.” His claim is that if phones do not come with Google as default, more search engines would get a fair share of customers (some people call this leveling the playing field)
In 2021, Google spent $26.3 billion to make sure it was the default search engine. Apple got the biggest deal, earning $18 billion from Google that year, according to the New York Times.
As things stand now, after a 10-week long trial, Google has lost in court and the Justice Department has won. But, only temporarily. Google will now appeal this verdict in a higher court.
There are ~17 search engines that you can use. Here’s a list of them. See if you want to try and use them instead of Google.
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