Google Tells Judges It's So Popular It's Bing's Top Search Term (bloomberg.com) 75
Google is so successful that it's the most searched for term on Microsoft's Bing search engine, the company's lawyer told a European Union court on Tuesday. From a report: "We have submitted evidence showing that the most common search query on Bing is by far Google," Alfonso Lamadrid, a lawyer for the Alphabet unit, said at the EU's General Court in Luxembourg. The tech giant has asked EU judges to overturn a record $5 billion fine and strike down a 2018 antitrust order that said Google unfairly pushed its search app on mobile phones running its Android software.
2nd most popular (Score:2)
2nd most popular is probably "Download Chrome"
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I doubt it, since all google sites nag you to download chrome, you don't generally need to search for it.
Re: 2nd most popular (Score:2)
Have you actually tried searching for "download chrome" or "download Firefox" on bing before? If you do, bing gets very angry with you. It probably wouldn't be so angry if people didn't do it all the time.
Actually I wouldn't be surprised if when people search bing for google, what a lot of them are actually looking for is chrome. Most people I know that use chrome just call it google.
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"You're already browsing in Microsoft Edge
Keep using to get world class performance with more privacy, more productivity, and more value" (if using Edge browser)
"Try the latest browser from Microsoft
Microsoft Edge is powered by the same open source technology as Google Chrome, providing best in class web and extension compatibility." (if using Chrome... to download Chrome?...)
And then righ
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And it isn't like Google doesn't prompt you to use Chrome when you just open their site in any browser other than Chrome.
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Not quite what I'd call getting very angry with me...
Just wait. Microsoft are sending around one of their Karens from their Karen squad. She's going to yell at you, and call you "a chrome turkey"
To prove ... (Score:3, Insightful)
To prove they shouldn't have to pay a fine in an antitrust case they are trying to show they have a monopoly on search?
Re: To prove ... (Score:2)
Humpty Dumpty logic rules for Microsoft and Google.
Re:To prove ... (Score:4, Interesting)
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im sure they have it for other search engines
Re:To prove ... (Score:4, Insightful)
I bet a lot of these searches come from Windows. It prompts you to search for what you want, and people want Google. Instead they get a bing search for Google, realise Windows Search is shit and never use it again.
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Exactly. Windows won't let you set any other browser as your default anymore (or, at least, constantly resets it back to Edge) so, you are forced to use Edge. Edge's default (and probably only) search option is Bing. So, if you open a browser and want to do a search you have to type Google into the address bar to get to it.
If they were to filter out search traffic from Edge, I would guess the top search on Bing would not be "Google."
Re:To prove ... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the idea is that they are trying to prove that they are just giving the customer what they want.
If you make bing the default and everyone immediately switches it back to google then the only thing you are doing is making customers jump thru extra hoops for no reason.
Amazon has the same argument. Even if the price is the same many people will still choose Amazon over one of its competitors.
Most name brands like Coke have a similar argument where the only reason someone buys off-brand is to save money but if the price is the same, they will choose the name brand version. With both google and bing both being free, people will naturally use the one they feel gives them better results.
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I think the idea is that they are trying to prove that they are just giving the customer what they want.
By blocking a 3rd party company from engaging an alternative search engine provider? They could have specified: "Search providers must be configurable by the customer". They got fined 5bn because they specified "Search providers must be Google".
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By blocking a 3rd party company from engaging an alternative search engine provider? They could have specified: "Search providers must be configurable by the customer". They got fined 5bn because they specified "Search providers must be Google".
I didn't say they were going to win their argument. But in their defense, I do believe is was configurable by the customer, they just required the factory default to be google. Again, in their defense, they basically created a free OS and gave it away for the express purpose of promoting their search engine. Android is a basically a loss leader for Google. It seems reasonable for them to say that you can use their product for free but only if it also contains their other free product that actually gener
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It's actually the opposite. Anyone can use Android for free. Case in point, Amazon does. But if you want maps, play store, gmail and all of the rest of the Google ecosystem, then you need to pay AND set Google as the default search engine. It's the paying version that mandates Google as the default search engine, not the free version.
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That's me. Hell, if it's only slightly more expensive then I may still chose to buy it from Amazon.
Reason being that if there is a problem, I know that Amazon will accept a return and refund me without any quibble.
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I'm the opposite, I'll gladly pay a bit more to avoid doing business with Amazon. Best case scenario I can order straight from the manufacturer.
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Me too. I also like that I can get it delivered to my door in one day without spending a ton on overnight Fedex etc. (assuming the alternative retailer even provides that option).
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For google to give you the better results, you'd need a timemachine and go back at least 10 years, before they screwed with it so much that you have to scroll down 10 or 20 results to get something actually useful.
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Google is trying to rightfully argue that they are the de-facto standard search engine, so the fact that many of their product appear at the top of i.e. their own rankings is in the interest of the consumer.
Re: To prove ... (Score:2)
This is when a criminal gets overconfident and starts ratting himself out left and right to the investigators without even realizing it.
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Why is it criminal for the user to type-in Google (as in search)?
I am one of those, who is quick to escape to the better search results, being presented with the Bing by default.
Re: To prove ... (Score:2)
Google was hurting it's own defense (claim of not being a monopoly) by bragging the way they did.
They should be smart enough to watch their words and not sing too loudly.
Maybe it made no difference in the case, i dunno, but I know it certainly didn't help them.
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At one point, the number 1 search for FaceBook was an article on I think ReadWriteWeb discussing FaceBook. The article had hundreds if not thousands of replies saying essentially "I hate the new interface, change it back" or "my password doesn't work" because people would just type in "FaceBook" wherever and click the first link. Needless to say it wasn't FaceBook and they didn't understand how to get to faceBook otherwise.
That's a monopoly on search, where users don't even know that search exists and don
google search is looking (Score:3)
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Hope you didn't hurt yourself when your knee jerked.
Markets work well for some things and only if people don't cheat. Markets can't operate in a natural monopoly environment such as last-mile. Markets have failed a when a monopoly forms. These two kinds of monopolies require different forms of government involvement to remedy the problem.
Natural monopolies are usually an indicator of a public good. I'm starting to consider that network effects create a natural monopoly because the cost of increasing com
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. I'm starting to consider that network effects create a natural monopoly because the cost of increasing competition places a higher cost on the end-user.
And on the site operator. Do you have any idea how much bot traffic hits a small web site vs. actual visitors? For every real prospective customer hit, you have one by Yandex, Baidu, Bing, Google, etc.
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Please. I haven't used google search in some time now. Stop acting like it's hard to just use a different option. I don't use any Google products and I am able to function just find online.
This is just as lame as when they were complaining about Microsoft (whos software I no longer use at home) forcing Internet Explorer on you. Okay, so just go download Netscape and be done with it. Yes, I realize MS was doing more then just that, since they were strong arming the OEMs to only include their stuff and not Ne
Are these people stupid? (Score:1)
That is a) completely irrelevant and b) could make the overall situation worse for them. If you approach having a monopoly, you are _less_ allowed to push your products.
Re:Are these people stupid? (Score:4, Insightful)
The court asserts Google is using their mobile platform to push the popularity of their search. Google disputes this by showing that even when users are given an alternative, Bing, they will overwhelmingly look for Google Search.
The idea that Google needs to push their search is ridiculous. Their search is more popular than their Android platform so if anything it would have to be the other way around to make sense (but they don't do this AFAIK).
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The idea that Google needs to push their search is ridiculous.
Yup. Google is even (almost universally) used as the generic term for "internet search" -- like Xerox is for "photocopy." How often does anyone use "Bing" for that, or even in conversation? Literally, not figuratively, never.
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Exactly.
I bet "Google" is also the number one search on Google.
I don't know how many times I've seen people type "google" in the address bar, hit enter and then click on the first result, google.com.
This doesn't imply what they think it implies.
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Exactly.
I bet "Google" is also the number one search on Google.
I don't know how many times I've seen people type "google" in the address bar, hit enter and then click on the first result, google.com.
This doesn't imply what they think it implies.
I saw a list of the top stupid Google searches a while ago. Pretty sure one of them was for "Number for 911" -- (not making this up).
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I don't know how many times I've seen people type "google" in the address bar, hit enter and then click on the first result, google.com.
This doesn't imply what they think it implies.
Do you imply them having any indication, their search from the address bar is served by Google, the search engine?
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I would wager a large portion of this is people not knowing what Bing is and since nearly everyone uses the phrase, "Just google it", people are searching out Google because of it. If you told these same people that Bing does the same thing as Google, I bet you'd see a signifi
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I did read the summary and I tried to read the article (Bloomberg block). The summary does not say "When presented with the option of using Bing, Google says consumers do not choose to use Bing." (I agree that "Being popular is not illegal.") The fact is that "Google" as a search term without context is really meaningless. Why did people search for "Google"? What did they do with (or because of) the search results?
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Did you read the summary? When presented with the option of using Bing, Google says consumers do not choose to use Bing. This is the opposite of "pushing" a product. Being popular is not illegal.
Sure. But being popular comes with harsher restrictions. Apparently, these Google lawyers cannot think 5 minutes into the future. Pushing their brand (as they clearly did) becomes a _worse_ offense if they are more popular.
imagine (Score:2)
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This is what they get for changing the default behavior of the URL bar to search.
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I'm 95% certain that the top search term on Google is "Google"
There are millions who think Google equates to The Internet.
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I'm 95% certain that the top search term on Google is "Google"
It's not that high, but I think it is pretty high.
This is a browser UI (or user education, but I prefer to blame the interface design) issue; browsers have almost universally adopted Chrome's combined address bar and search bar, but many users don't realize they can just type any search query into it. They tend to type web site "names" which aren't proper URLs but something approximating them into it when they want to go to a site, then not realize that what they get back is a Google search result. And wh
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I just checked top search term for Google and they are:
Facebook
Youtube
Google
I then decided to do the same for Bing and guess what they are:
Facebook
Youtube
Google
So I'm not sure Google's argument holds much weight.
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I quite often use google to get to DuckDuckGo so that they "know". I use multiple search engines. Tech answers are best returned with google. Anything political or about COVID is best searched using anything but google, especially if you are looking for real statistical data.
Re: imagine (Score:2)
I don't think they really care. Even if they did, you're not really telling them why, so there's nothing they'd be able to do with that info.
The fact that you're using them at all is far more important as it raises their daily active user count, making them more attractive to advertisers. You're better off just switching to ddg if you're trying to make a statement.
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I use Google to figure out how to use Microsoft products all the time. Office programs, development tools, MSDN references on Microsoft Windows APIs, how to fix this or that annoyance.
Pushing F1 in the program itself never finds things. Searching for a macro for an argument to an API can return something in some other sql server god knows what reference instead of the context you are in. And "Tell me what you want to do" has a 1 and 8 record for me.
These are all wrappers around 1990 level understandings
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Excel:
F1
Search: "Password lock excel file"
Result #1: Protect an Excel File
https://support.microsoft.com/... [microsoft.com]
And? (Score:2)
"We have submitted evidence showing that the most common search query on Bing is by far Google,"
That is precisely the problem, could they even have picked anything more symptomatic of what is wrong with the internet search business? Not that I plan to interrupt the enemy while he is making a mistake, just keep shooting yourself in the foot Google, ... here have some free ammo ...
What's their point? (Score:5, Insightful)
Being popular doesn't mean that they didn't participate in unfair business practices. Microsoft was literally sued over the same practice using Internet Explorer.
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I installed no such search engine on my Android phone, which is what Google was fined over. Google put it there and it came with it. My phone even has a dedicated key-press to open Google Search, and there is no way for me to switch that to DuckDuckGo or anything else.
So what on earth are you talking about?
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You're right, even though IE4 was *vastly* superior to Netscape 4 at that time. So they didn't even need to make it mandatory, anyone would have switched anyways.
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IIRC NS4 was The awful version, but not everyone switched - that much I do remember for sure. I was one of those who always preferred NS, even if for a short while IE might have been the better. At that point I had already lost my trust in MS when it came to security, and history of IE has shown me I was right to not trust them - it doesn't necessarily mean NS was any better at the time, but the way I saw it back then my choice was between someone I already didn't trust and another whose products were overa
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Ya, but ... (Score:2)
"... the most common search query on Bing is by far Google," ...
I searched for "by far Google" on Bing and the results weren't that useful.
Bing is the culprit (Score:1)
Nobody would choose bing over Google. Microsoft forces it on Windows users. Ironically Microsoft is the antitrust violator here.
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Who says Microsoft can't buid great products? (Score:2, Funny)
I mean, they built one of the most successful Chrome installers out there
Google *is* the Internet !? (Score:2)
Oh, I can explain that (Score:2)
You open your browser after the latest Windows update, you type "google" and hit return without looking because usually the autofill takes care of the rest, only to find that MS thought it's very necessary to reset your favorite search engine to Bing and to clear your autofill and instead consider the URL line a search term it should look for in your favorite search engine.
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Narcassist much? (Score:2)
Really, I hope the judge slams Google just for this alone and serves up the whole bakery of humble pie to them.
OTOH (Score:2)
If someone types Bing into Google, you know they're looking for the guy who sung White Christmas
Proof of idiocy, not popularity (Score:2)
You have no choice (Score:2)
If you type Google into Google, you can break the Internet:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Typing Google into Bing appears to be safe.
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You only break the web.
Which is the only part of the internet that nowadays deserves a horrible death.
EU judge: So you're saying you're a monopolist... (Score:1)
Time to cut that bitch up! Start with the googly eyes!