In order to defend itself, Google executives dropped some bombshell which definitely showed how popular it is across the globe as the ultimate search engine.
While fighting against a US$5 billion fine from the European Union over market power abuse, Google said that its name was the most searched term on its rival search engine Bing which on a global ranking falls as the second most popular search engine right behind Google.
Sometimes, I ask myself “do people use Bing?” But yes they mostly do. I mean consider when you first purchase your PC or just freshly installed a new Windows OS on your machine, you’ll probably hop on the Microsoft Edge browser and search “Google Chrome”.
How ironic is that? I am guilty of that too but it’s just the reality. Even though Windows is the most popular operating system on computers, Google Chrome is the most popular web browser on the internet which is why many people call the Microsoft Edge browser “a browser to download another browser”
But let’s go back to Google, the company said its service is just merely popular but that doesn’t mean there is no rivalry or space for competition on the market.
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The EU accused Google of using Android’s success in the smartphone market to make Google the default search engine.
“We have submitted evidence showing that the most common search query on Bing is, by far, ‘Google’,” lawyer Alfonso Lamadrid told the EU General Court, as first reported by Bloomberg. “People use Google because they choose 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.”
This is the same rhetoric from the company after its record 2018 fine with the company’s CEO Sundar Pichai writing that Android “has created more choice for everyone, not less.”
But Margrethe Vestager, then the EU’s Competition Commissioner, said Google had made Android manufacturers pre-install its search app and Chrome web browser – and paid some to make it the only pre-installed app – meaning only 1% of people downloaded a different search app.
That could be true considering the fact that Google reportedly paid Apple some US$15 billion to make its search engine the primary search platform on its Safari web browser.
