Google is fighting a European Union antitrust fine using Microsoft’s Bing.
Specifically, you are using Bing’s main search term, which according to Google, is Google.
For a bit of background, the EU slapped Google with a massive € 4.34 billion (roughly $ 6.37 billion CAD) antitrust fine in 2018 for requiring Android phone makers to bundle Google apps with Play. Store. During the last week, Google started the appeal process to fight the fine.
Noteworthy is the evidence presented by Alfonso Lamadrid, a lawyer for Google’s parent company Alphabet. The evidence cited Bing’s most popular search term, supposedly Google, as proof that customers choose Google Search over the competition.
“People use Google because they want to, not because they are forced to. Google’s market share in general search is consistent with consumer surveys showing that 95% of users prefer Google to rival search engines, ”Lamadrid said.
According to Bloomberg, Google argues that being the top search result for Bing shows that people are actively choosing to use Google. It follows, then, that the grouping of its services by Google with the Play Store on Android phones is not the factor that drives people who use its services; people actually prefer to use those services.
While it may take more than just being Bing’s top search result to prove that point, it’s hilarious to see Google argue that in court.
It’s also worth noting that there’s nothing stopping people from choosing to use different services on their Android smartphone. Of course, being the default can significantly influence people’s choice of whether or not to use a given application or service. The real question is whether Google takes advantage of its position as the default service to prevent other services from competing with it.
Source: Bloomberg Via: 9to5Google