Drops a nice stat, but it may be irrelevant
Google’s claiming pure superiority over other search engines as the reason why it should not pay $5 billion to the European Union. The company is in the middle of appealing the commission’s record fine from 2018 when it was deternined that the online search giant was able to ensure the dominance of its services over competing ones through the popularity of Android devices.
So, what has Google put up in its defense at General Court? According to Bloomberg, it’s Microsoft’s own search engine.
“We have submitted evidence showing that the most common search query on Bing is by far Google,” said Alfonso Lamadrid, a Google lawyer. “People use Google because they choose to, not because they are forced to.”
Sick burn, right? While we don’t have a hard citation here, we do know that SEO analytics company Ahrefs recorded ‘Google’ as Bing’s top query in 2019 (via Digital Information World) and it currently has the term at #3 for the year to-date with just over 8 million returns in the U.S.
Lamadrid also mentioned consumer surveys where 95% of participants chose Google over the alternatives.
But here’s the thing: any Android phone sold with Google Play services comes with the Google search engine along with many others like Chrome, Drive, Photos, and YouTube. Do consumers have the right to select where they get their web browser and cloud storage before they move on from their first boot?
Google faces an uphill challenge against that principle as it fights the European Commission ruling. Its initial reaction included auctioning off preferred search engine slots for new Android phones sold in Europe.
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