
Why we're saying no to Google - Yrlec
https://blog.ecosia.org/google-android-choice-screen-auction-eu-ecosia/
======
cameronbrown
Sorry, but this really is the best way to go about this. What's the
alternative?

1\. Random list of all search engines - most of which may be far worse/less
advanced/more evil (read: poor & desperate) than Google.

2\. Hand picked list by Google? If you want neutrality, then you are joking...
Right?

3\. 'Independent' committee who decide every so often - I'm not against this,
but who's going to fund this? I can guess the two main companies in a whim
(cough: Google, Microsoft). This is basically a less-transparent auction.

4\. Auction-based. You call it 'selling off to the highest bidder', I call it
allocation of limited resources - let's call this what it is, an advert.

5\. Android switches to a paid model, Google completely closes off the
platform and charges carriers directly for their services.

I really do like what Ecosia is doing but consider this:

1\. Google is not cutting off your ability to download Ecosia - there are
still dozens of search engines in the Play Store.

2\. Ecosia benefits from Google Play infrastructure without having to
contribute back because it's free for developers. Obviously Google benefits
from having mindshare/user base, but there's still a lot of value for
developers that Apple charges far more for.

I think Google should have given Android users a choice long ago, but I don't
believe it's completely fair to call this auction move 'evil'.

What else could they do?

~~~
wartijn_
Maybe option 6: Don't have a search app by default?

I don't see why such an app is required. If user need to search for something,
they can use their browser. And if someone wants to have a browser app/widget
they can download it from the Play store.

This "solution" by Google is just a way to prevent more fines, while most
people will still have a huge Google search bar on their phone and Google can
make some extra money.

~~~
cameronbrown
Then who chooses which browser is Android's default? And which search engine
is the browser's default?

You've just shifted the problem down the stack.

~~~
ppseafield
The EU had a solution for that when Microsoft was doing the same thing with
browsers: post install offer the user a choice of web browsers, which IIRC was
based on market share.

~~~
NikkiA
Which is exactly what google is being forced to implement here, except that
because there are thousands of search engines, they're auctioning rather than
picking the top 10.

------
chupa-chups
This sounds like 'I want money by being "not google" and thus people have to
like me'.

The linked website doesn't point to anything else but that they're allegedly
planting trees for (an unknown percentage of the money collected by) showing
ads to users. Which is nice, but if you want that I support tree planting
initiatives explicitly (which I do), why don't you just encourage someone
doing just that, maybe by pointing out sites which actually encourage to do
that, like [https://www.plant-for-the-planet.org](https://www.plant-for-the-
planet.org)?

~~~
joelx
The ongoing attacks on Google are crazy to me. Google has done wonders for all
of us - remember how terrible search engines used to be? Do you remember how
terrible email was before Gmail? How awful MapQuest was before Google maps?

In my opinion these attacks are a paid PR driven distraction from the truly
evil actors in the world - see the losses of freedom for people in Hong Kong
or citizens of Russia who been imprisoned or killed.

When will hacker news end together to fight true evil instead of minor
infractions?

~~~
reaperducer
_remember how terrible search engines used to be? Do you remember how terrible
email was before Gmail? How awful MapQuest was before Google maps?_

You seem to be under the impression that Google is the only company that could
have achieved this. Fastmail is proof that this is simply not true. Google was
the leader, and used slimy tactics to kill competition wherever it could.
That's not innovation, that's monopoly.

Here's the corollary to your statement:

"Remember how great the internet was when there were lots of choices for
services? Remember when web sites competed to produce the best content in
order to attract readers, instead of gaming Google's SEO? Remember when sites
didn't have to make separate AMP versions of their content? Remember when you
could surf the web and not be tracked from site to site to TV to store?
Remember when your credit card purchases were between you and your bank, and
not handed over to a Mountainview advertising company? Remember when you
bought into an internet service and it would keep running until it went out of
business, instead of just being randomly terminated for no reason?" I could go
on.

~~~
lern_too_spel
None of your remember whens support your thesis.

> Remember when sites didn't have to make separate AMP versions of their
> content?

This one contradicts your "kill competition" narrative. Any search engine can
implement its own AMP cache, and all the major ones do. A slimy kill
competition tactic would be to demand publishers integrate directly with
Google instead, like Apple News or FB Instant Articles.

> Remember when web sites competed to produce the best content in order to
> attract readers, instead of gaming Google's SEO?

This also contradicts your thesis because it's actually a benefit to
competitors instead of an example of Google killing competition. Competitors
that use different algorithms from Google are less likely have their rankings
gamed by SEO black hats, causing their results to appear comparatively better.

> Remember when you bought into an internet service and it would keep running
> until it went out of business, instead of just being randomly terminated for
> no reason?

No, I don't remember when this was ever the case.

Actual examples of killing competition are things like making it difficult to
use alternate app stores, push notification services, and location services on
Android. Enabling some of these would be difficult (not impossible) to do
securely, and Google has no incentive to expend resources to enable them, but
a working regulatory body could require it for the public good.

------
stakhanov
This thing doesn't address the problem it was actually meant to address which
is to stop an anticompetitive practice. The spirit of the law in relation to
antitrust is that you can't abuse a monopoly in one market to gain a monopoly
in another. That's why it wasn't acceptable that Google's Android would set
Google to be the default search engine and offer no other options.

Now Google says to those other search engines: Hey, you CAN be the default.
But you're going to have to give us ALL your profits.

How is that any less anti-competitive than what they were doing before?

Footnote: Why am I saying ALL of their profits? Well it's four slots. Google
is going to be one of them. Microsoft and Yahoo are going to bid whatever it
takes to be on the list. -- Now there's ONE slot left for everyone who isn't
part of the existing search oligopoly like Ecosia, Qwant, DuckDuckGo and so
forth.

Now imagine if this was open outcry: Ecosia bids X dollars. Qwant outbids them
by offering X+1 dollars for that fourth slot. Well: If Ecosia knows they would
still be profitable even if they had to pay X+2 dollars, that's what they're
going to bid, isn't it? They hit a limit only at the point where they know
that the deal would turn unprofitable. The guy that gets the slot would, in
open outcry, end up paying the next guy's profit plus one dollar. But that's
not the model. They're doing sealed bids and you'll have to actually pay what
you bid, so... -- That's why I'm saying ALL their profit.

~~~
jsnell
So, let's imagine that Android was an independent entity from Google.
Obviously selling the default search engine placement would be one of their
main forms of monetization, just like it's for Firefox and iOS.

How would that monetization be done? We know from Firefox and iOS what happens
if you sell the outright default with no selection: Google will buy it
basically everywhere. That won't increase competition in search at all. To
achieve that, you'd need to sell multiple slots. Which is exactly what this
proposal ends up doing.

If the behavior of search engine selection ends up exactly the same in Google-
owned Android and in the best-case scenario for an independent Android,
where's the problem?

> They're doing sealed bids and you'll have to actually pay what you bid,
> so... -- That's why I'm saying ALL their profit.

That seems like a fair criticism though. In addition to the issues with first-
price blind bids, a year seems like a really long interval. If it was e.g.
monthly, there would at least be some scope for iterative price discovery.

~~~
piaste
> If the behavior of search engine selection ends up exactly the same in
> Google-owned Android and in the best-case scenario for an independent
> Android, where's the problem?

Do you really not see a difference between a company making the highest bid at
an auction, and that same company owning the auction house and getting an
infinite bid for free?

Say Boeing and a bunch of smaller companies are bidding on various defense
contracts. But then Boeing gets fully nationalized and they start bidding zero
dollars for everything, because it all goes back in the same federal budget.
When the competitors complain, Boeing responds "well, we all know we would
have won anyway even if we had stayed a private company, so the end result to
the Pentagon is the same - they get Boeing aircraft. Where's the problem?". Is
that a fair market?

~~~
jsnell
I can't map your analogy to this case at all, it just ends up as total
nonsense.

Android seems to be the federal government, so Boeing is Google, and bidding
for a defense contract is bidding for search engine provider placement. But
the flow of the money is the wrong way around (the government is the entity
paying, while Android is the entity receiving payments). And the other
mismatch is that the search engine auction has four slots each of exactly the
same value, while contracts for military airplanes seem to be single-sourced.
If Boeing wins the JSF bid with the X-32, there won't be a F-35 contract for
Lockheed.

What you're proposing is that not one, not two, not three, but four other
companies figure out a way of monetizing search more effectively than Google.
(Judging from iOS, the count is at 0 right now). If that happens, there's no
point in worrying about Google having a dominant position anyway, since their
core business must be totally screwed.

(Would you be happy with an auction where Google needs to put in a synthetic
bid based on the actual observed value of a mobile search user?).

------
bubble_talk
If you are going to go after Google, you really should do a much better job.
And there are _very good reasons_ to reduce Google's dominance, but this whiny
approach isn't helping.

1 Don't be a thin wrapper around an inferior search engine. Apparently Bing
cannot index "JS only" websites. [1] Improve your search quality first. Unless
your search quality is remarkable in at least some small niche, you are
probably not even going to get on the radar.

2 "Google is trying to create artificial scarcity" \- As others in this thread
have pointed out, no search engine is actually _blocked_ on Android devices to
the best of my knowledge. Android setup screen is completely Google's
prerogative, and if you don't want to participate in the auction, fine. Save
the money for better things (see point 4).

3 "Purpose-driven search engines will be crowded out by profit-hungry rivals"
If you use Bing, aren't you already supporting non-"purpose driven" search
engines? Is Bing's purpose somehow superior to Google's purpose? If all search
engines became "purpose driven", you can be pretty damn sure that the quality
will take a big hit.

4 Focus on getting word of mouth in more intelligent ways, less expensive
ways. Why not go after Google where they are _actually vulnerable_? So many
popular independent websites get hit randomly by all kinds of Google updates.
Make no mistake, a lot of them would be very happy to promote alternative
search engines. Find these websites, build relationships with the people who
run them, and sponsor their work. It is just as important a mission in my
view, plus who will say no to a chance to promote a good cause (assuming
Ecosia.org are running everything on the up-and-up)

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20605484](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20605484)

~~~
labawi
> Android setup screen is completely Google's prerogative

I believe the EU antitrust rule disagrees.

------
mhkool
This behaviour of Google shows that the fines of the EU are still not high
enough.

~~~
pb7
It shows me to me that the EC shouldn’t have meddled to begin with. Android is
free but Google isn’t providing it out of the goodness of its heart. If it
can’t recoup its costs from offering the Google suite of apps (including
search), then Android will be monetized by other search engines paying to be
included in the options. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.

~~~
guitarbill
I'd be okay with your objection if I could pay to have the spying/data
gathering turned off, like the Kindles offer with ads/no ads. But you can't,
probably because the world would go crazy if someone finally puts a price on
personal data.

Sucks if their business model isn't profitable with current legislation, but
they aren't the first company something like that has happened to. And they're
hardly a bastion of ethics and morality, which is fine (I'm not stupid and
realize how companies work), but I find it hard to feel like there's a great
injustice here.

~~~
jvolkman
> if I could pay to have the spying/data gathering turned off, like the
> Kindles offer with ads/no ads

What makes you think that paying to disable ads also disables data gathering?
Does Amazon say this?

~~~
guitarbill
No mate, it was just an example, an analogy. Although my Kindle works pretty
well without internet connectivity. Much harder to do with a phone, kind of
defeats the purpose.

------
0wis
I’m not sure to understand why google has to discriminate itself on its own
products...? If you are not happy with Google products, you still have the
choice to buy an other smartphone. And you can change your search engine
afterwards anyway. Its already a huge shot in the feet to propose other search
engines upon installation.

~~~
jonathanyc
Society chooses to discourage anticompetitive behavior because competition
fosters innovation and leads to prosperity. If you’re fine with Google,
great—let’s let others have a choice so that Google can be encouraged to work
harder and make an even better product.

------
deogeo
> By artificially limiting user options, Google is creating scarcity where
> there is none.

Does this refer to only the default selections screen, or will users be unable
to choose a search provider that doesn't participate in the auction? I.e.
there's no "other" option to type in a URL?

~~~
dylz
This entire blog post reads pretty terribly to me. It's yet another bing
search result 'reseller' with no real pros to using it..

Users can still just choose the engine they want elsewhere. This appears to be
first-launch only. Doesn't affect Firefox from the Play store either.

------
brainless
I think we are looking at this the wrong way. It is not about other
competitors, it is how much daily users will not move away from Google search.

If the startup advice about "build a product your users will love" is true
then we certainly are not seeing a compelling competitor. A few good efforts
are there, including DDG, but none with mass appeal.

Just non-cooperating with Google does not solve the issue. Even Ecosia, from
comments in this thread, seems to have unclear resources and mission. So why
should I as a user use them? Are they also not simply using marketing tactics
instead of building an awesome product? Which, BTW, is mindbogglingly
difficult.

------
blue_devil
There_is_no_scarcity. Mobile screens are not that small. 1) a list of all
search engines b)"search for your search engine" c) no default search set at
all, people add it themselves.

------
skybrian
Looks like there are three spots. Oddly, Google is using a first-price auction
rather than their more usual second-price auction [1]. I wonder why?

In any case, it seems weird not to submit a bid at all. There must be some
price above zero that's worth it to them?

[1] "Google will use a first-price sealed-bid auction to select the other
general search providers that appear in the choice screen. Google will conduct
auctions on a per-country basis for the period from January 1, 2020 to
December 31, 2020. Following the initial round of auctions, any subsequent
rounds will occur once per year."
[https://www.android.com/choicescreen/](https://www.android.com/choicescreen/)

~~~
ing33k
Google is moving from the second-price auction.

[https://support.google.com/admanager/answer/9298211?hl=en](https://support.google.com/admanager/answer/9298211?hl=en)

------
chrisco255
I feel pretty strongly that Google (and Apple) should be forced to offer a
choice for default search engine on their mobile devices. Microsoft was pretty
handily sued and accused of antitrust for not offering this option on Windows
desktop browsers. Google benefitted a great deal from that and it only makes
sense that they should have to play by the same rules.

~~~
asdfasgasdgasdg
That's exactly the process this article is referencing. Google is being forced
to offer a default choice in the EU. They are using a market-based auction
price method to determine which of their competitors value the spots the most.
The company in question has an objection as to how the options are being
selected.

------
Causality1
>Android users deserve the option to freely choose their search engine, and
that choice should not be auctioned off to the highest bidder.

Man, Google is getting some SERIOUS mileage out of removing "Don't Be Evil"
from their mission statement.

~~~
m0rphling
That phrased stopped being their mission statement in the spring of 2018.

~~~
kyrra
It's still very much in there.

From: [https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-
conduct/](https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct/)

> And remember… don’t be evil, and if you see something that you think isn’t
> right – speak up!

The problem was that it was moved from near the top to being near the bottom
(though it's own paragraph). Sadly there were lots of very inaccurate
headlines like this:

> Google Removes 'Don't Be Evil' Clause From Its Code of Conduct

~~~
jasonvorhe
Thanks for pointing that out. It's shocking how little people who complain
about Google actually know about what they're criticizing.

