If you’re like most people on the internet, you’ve been using Google as your default search engine for years. Over time, this has led to the search engine becoming essentially the only name in Towntown, integrated so closely with greater internet infrastructure that it’s impossible for others to break in. However, Google’s monopoly has been challenged by the US Department of Justice and DC District Court Judge Amit Mehta, and the effects could be profound for all of us worldwide.
The Ruling
The ruling from Judge Mehta states that while Google doesn’t have to give up its browser, Chrome, it does have to release some key elements of its search data to “qualified competitors”. This will help others draw from Google’s immense network of resources, while preventing the company from engaging in anti-consumer and anti-competitive practices. Google has become notorious for this behaviour ever since it removed “Don’t Be Evil” from its code of conduct, which many consumer rights advocates consider an inevitable outcome from a large tech company.
Fighting Google’s Dominance
The move by the Judge has been hailed as offering huge potential benefits for users, as the monopolistic and general anti-consumer actions from Google in the last few years have been consistent. Users might have noted Howhow Google’s search results have become less reliable than they once were, made even Moremore complicated by semi-accurate Google AI synopsis. With more names in the market, this issue should be lessened.
Google’s self-inflicted reputational harm has occurred outside of the search space, too, with the company’s actions routinely under fire from consumer rights groups. While mapping for Google Street View between 2008 and 2010, the company collected millions of names, passwords, emails, and other personal information from unencrypted Wi-Fi networks. While an eventual lawsuit in 2013 saw the company pay a $7 million fine, this fine amounted to 0.026% of Google’s $55.51 billion revenue that year. Alongside myriad other practices and actions, the trust users have in Google as a company to do the right thing is seeing an ongoing downward trend.
What Consumers Can Expect?
The takeaway from this opening of search data is that more search engines will be able to compete with Google in direct search capacity. Even if many engines can draw the same search results as Google, how they display and order these results alongside and manage the rest of their service could be vastly different.
Such possibilities have already been illustrated in other industries to a highly successful degree. In one example, the online casino and bingo industry is one online industry that shows the consequences of healthy competition. While the layout of online casino services is all different, many titles like Shamrock Fortunes and Reel King Big Money are shared over different sites. This allows each casino to succeed based on its user experience, and not through exclusivity alone. By fostering competition, this helps the health of the market, unlike Google’s monopolistic approach.
How exactly these changes will be implemented in a search industry filled with loopholes and complicated technical and legal components remains to be seen. Should the result match the intent, the outcome could be an online environment which is much more positive to users, where Google could once again be forced to put its customers first. The market might even see the return of the likes of Alta Vista and DuckDuckGo to the mainstream, which many of our older readers will appreciate.
