Google Rival's Study Urges Letting Mobile Users Pick Search Defaults

Google could lose 20% of the mobile search market that it dominates if more users had the option to choose their default search provider via a preference menu, privacy-focused search engine DuckDuckGo argues in new research. From a report: This study fleshes out that idea and gives DuckDuckGo ammunition it can give authorities investigating Google for anticompetitive practices in the U.S., the U.K. and Australia. Google developed the Android operating system, which is used by roughly 80 percent of the global mobile market, and Google's search tools are built into Android in a variety of ways. DuckDuckGo conducted user testing of 12,000 people in the U.S., UK and Australia, where Google market share in mobile search is 95%, 98% and 98% respectively. A preference menu could reduce those market shares by 20%, 22% and 16% respectively, the testing found. Testing also concluded that when given options, users scroll through to see the options before making a choice on a search engine. DuckDuckGo also tested user behavior when Google was placed on the last screen of the preference menu, finding no statistically significant difference in how often users selected it.

Google isn't stopping people

[kwelch007]

Google doesn't make it impossible for people to select a different search engine. I don't see any compelling reason why they should have to make it easier, especially when the product they're providing in this case is "free."

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[Jarwulf]

Well Microsoft got in trouble back in the day for bundling Internet Explorer. Google dominates and influences our lives and how we see things in ways MS could only dream of even back at its height.

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[raymorris]

Microsoft got in trouble for a little more than just having IE available. Kinda like saying OJ got in trouble for arguing with his ex.

Re:Google isn't stopping people

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Microsoft specifically got in trouble for making IE the default browser. That's why the solution they and the regulators agrees to was, wait for it, a screen when people started up that let them choose which browser to use. Just like DDG wants to help diminish Google's influence.

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[raymorris]

And banning OEMs from supporting any other browser, and most importantly intentionally damaging their own business in order to damage competitors more and ...

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[Actually, I do RTFA]

And Google pays Firefox/Apple to be the default shipping search (in addition to Chrome obviously) and most importantly intentionally damages their own business in order to damage competitors more.

Google is doing shit that MS never imagined from an antitrust point of view.

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[raymorris]

> most importantly intentionally damages their own business in order to damage competitors more.

How so? You think being the default search in Firefox is bad for Google?

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[Actually, I do RTFA]

That's good for Google. I'm talking about, for instance, constantly modifying YouTube so that it only works in Chrome. Or adding some adblocking to Chrome that hits 5% of Google ads but 50% of other company's. Or numerous other things. Paying to be the default search is just good for Google... unless it causes anti trust regulation.

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[raymorris]

> adding some adblocking to Chrome that hits 5% of Google ads but 50% of other company's

Google blocked their own ads?

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[Actually, I do RTFA]

Yes.Well, more accurately, they blocked some annoying behavior (it wasn't auto-playing video, but think something like that because I don't recall what it was). That meant about 5% of their ads no longer rendered/ran properly on Chrome and about 50% of their competitors' ads no longer did.

Honestly, it was probably a good thing in isolation, but done for anticompetitive reasons. In the same way that several MS decisions were objectively good for the consumer experience, if you stripped out their anticompe

Re:

[raymorris]

Yeah I've found that it's good for my business if I don't annoy the shit out of my users. :)

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[Actually, I do RTFA]

Yeah, as an individual act it as good for users. I said that. However, Google originally pushed for adding the annoying feature. It was only after competitors started using it for ads that they decided to block it.

Microsoft including a default browser in their operating system as opposed to making people find a disk and load an FTP program or a browser to download their browser of choice is obviously better for people considered in isolation. But that doesn't mean it wasn't a dick move designed to move p

Re:

[raymorris]

I guess of you are of the opinion that having a browser included with the OS "a dick move", that's cool.

What is illegal is hurting your own business/product in order to hurt a competitor even more. So for example for a time IE was set to be unable to connect to Netscape.com and certain other sites. That made IE objectively less capable and useful. For the purpose of making it hard to download the competing browser.

You stated a claim of fact that Google intentionally damaged their service, for the purpose

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[Actually, I do RTFA]

Yeah, breaking the W3C standards that Google pushed for is making their product worse. It's not automatic pop-ups. It was not something I would include in she standard, but if you don't like it change the standard.

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[raymorris]

What standard ia thay, exactly?

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Oh wait, they did

[farble1670]

Google could lose 20% of the mobile search market that it dominates if more users had the option to choose their default search provider

In other news, Mercedes could lose 20% of their new car sales if they started offering customers Saabs.

The search integration in Android is extremely light. On my Pixel, there's a Google search widget on the home screen. Anyone can create a home screen widget, and anyone can create an app to back a widget. Oh wait, they did.

Install Bing:
https://play.google.com/store/... [google.com]

Or install DuckDuckGo:
https://play.google.com/store/... [google.com]

Or Yahoo:
https://play.google.com/store/... [google.com]

Or whatever.

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[Actually, I do RTFA]

And you could download Mozilla in the late nineties, but still MS got in trouble for making IE the default browser.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

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[larryjoe]

Google could lose 20% of the mobile search market that it dominates if more users had the option to choose their default search provider

In other news, Mercedes could lose 20% of their new car sales if they started offering customers Saabs.

The more apt analogy is if Mercedes dealers offered Saabs, and all dealers were Mercedes dealers.

The saving grace for Google is that iPhones exist. That Google ties phone search with Android is obvious. If all iPhones went away, then Google would obviously have monopoly power, and such product tying would be illegal. However, it's the exercise of monopoly power rather than the monopoly itself that is the foundation of anti-trust laws. The question is whether Google can exercise monopoly power via Androi

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[trawg]

On my Pixel, there's a Google search widget on the home screen. Anyone can create a home screen widget, and anyone can create an app to back a widget. Oh wait, they did.

But you can't remove the Google search widget from the home screen, at least (AFAIK) without some serious effort.

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[_merlin]

But you can't remove the Google search widget from the home screen, at least (AFAIK) without some serious effort.

Really? On a Samsung Android phone it's no different to any other widget and can be moved or removed from the home screen in the same way.

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[trawg]

Ah right, on a Pixel it is locked in place and can't be removed easily. It's not a standard widget, it's some fixed-in-place thing that is always present and can't be moved. I think you can customise it by changing the Google logo or a light/dark theme but that's about it!

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[Acron]

On a Pixel phone with the Pixel Launcher it is locked in place. So just install another launcher. Or root your phone, since you don't have manufacturer and carrier trying to lock the phone and prevent you from modifying it.

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[farble1670]

But you can't remove the Google search widget from the home screen, at least (AFAIK) without some serious effort.

That's true, sort of. On the Pixel launcher, the search "widget" is part of the launcher and not a proper widget. Same thing for the weather / temperature. No idea why they did that sort of makes the against them stronger.

You can of course use a different launcher and there are lots of good ones on the Play Store, but I'm sure most people don't get that far.

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[trawg]

You can of course use a different launcher and there are lots of good ones on the Play Store, but I'm sure most people don't get that far.

Yeh, for me the entire point of going with a Pixel is to remove the amount of random code running on my device and picking another launcher just is too much of a project for me to want to have to deal with.

It bugs me a lot that I can't just remove it like any other widget!

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[Acron]

I've done the research, so go ahead and use Nova Launcher Pro (50M+ downloads, a 4.6 rating with 1M reviews) or Nova Launcher Prime (over 1M downloads and a 4.7 with over 333k reviews). The 3-4 market surveys I read placed Nova at or near the top every time. It behaves just fine on my old Pixel XL with Android 10, so it should do even better with newer faster phones. And you can back up your layout to the cloud, so the next time you replace your phone, just reinstall Nova and restore from back up and you

On IOS too?

[tlhIngan]

I know iOS lets people choose when it's set up - Apple shows a screen to let people pick their search provider (Google is default, but Bing and DuckDuckGo are supported options as well).

I presume this study used iOS users as a sample base because that's what Apple did?

Google

[tuppe666]

No Apple sell you to Google for BILLLLLIONS because Apple love you.

Google still best apart from social/political skew

[sideslash]

For technical and other general searches Google has put a fantastic amount of brilliant work into returning the answers the searcher is looking for. However, when you get into the social and political realm, it's puzzling to me that Google's results show a thumb on the scale effect that sometimes renders the results useless. Or at least fails to return the answers being sought.

Instead of returning the answers sought, I think folks at Google feel it their duty to guide the searcher into answers Google think

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[transporter_ii]

I search for code snippets all the time. I use DuckDuckGo about 90% of the time now and get exactly the results I need. I do fall back to google occasionally when I'm not finding what I need.

One area I will say is superior on google is image search. DuckDuckGo is rudimentary compared to google for images.

Google annoyance. If you deep dive for solutions on an error you are getting, google will flag you as a bot. DuckDuckGo has never done that to me.

What year is this?

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Google seems to require a ton of digging to get anything useful. DDG just works. At least 90% of the time. The other 10% it seems that Google is better. But I strictly fail over to that if DDG doesn't give me what I want in the first few hits.

It seems that this is because Gogole tries to predict how most people search (natural language, etc.) and prefer something that's a little less natural.

Best Option

[NawShucksNo]

If Google is the most likely option to be selected than it's morally wrong to put them at the end of the list as it increases the likelihood that people who want them will not pick them because they were not the default. The who point of a default is to highlight the option most people who see the menu will want. Are we also going to go after websites that put USA as the first choice of country?

Yahoo would probably gain, but DDG wouldn't

[Chris453]

Do you really think that non-technical people will choose a search provider named Duck Duck Go? Given an option, they would choose the only two options they have ever heard of: Google or Yahoo. DDG doesn't have mainstream brand recognition and technical people that care would already change their default.