Google Will Drop Auction For Rival Search Engines On Android Devices
Amid criticism over its dominant mobile market share in Europe, tech giant Google on Tuesday made a concession to its rivals. In September, Google will jettison the blind auctions that appear for other search engines that show up on the "choice screen" of Android devices.
"We are now making some final changes to the Choice Screen including making participation free for eligible search providers. We will also be increasing the number of search providers shown on the screen," Oliver Bethell, a director at Google, posted Tuesday on the company's blog.
The move comes after the EU fined Google a record 4.24 billion euros ($5.16 billion) in 2018 for using Android mobile software to thwart rival search engines as an anti-competitive practice. Google appealed the fine months later at the General Court of the EU.
The upcoming choice screen will have up to 12 search engine options.
Google's rivals have long complained that the current choice screen was unfair. Bloomberg News noted Tuesday that Google's market share in May for mobile search in Europe was 97%.
“We’ve campaigned for fairness in the search engine market for several years, and with this, we have something that resembles a level playing field in the market,” Christian Kroll, CEO of Berlin-based search engine Ecosia, said Tuesday in a statement.
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