One of America鈥檚 twin antitrust regulators has taken Google to court. The Department of Justice, in a suit years in the making, alleged that the company ran afoul of the nation鈥檚 antitrust laws.
The government鈥檚 argument is as follows. Google has spent considerable sums of money to ensure that Google is the default search engine on the iPhone, Mac, and other devices, as well as a variety of web browsers. Primarily as a result of this default placement, Google maintains a larger piece of the online search business than its competitors. This results in more ad revenue going to Google than its rivals. And these superior revenues enable Google to invest more in its product and pay more for default placement, ultimately allowing it to maintain dominance in search in perpetuity. Or so the argument goes.
Scratch the surface, though, and it鈥檚 clear that this argument is less than rock-solid.
The government鈥檚 primary argument鈥攖hat the default option nearly always wins鈥攋ust isn鈥檛 true. Longtime iPhone users know this personally. When Apple replaced Google Maps with its own half-baked app as part of iOS 6, the results were dire. CEO Tim Cook had to issue . One of Steve Jobs鈥� former foot soldiers . After Apple Maps stranded Australians in the middle of a national park without access to water in 114 degree heat, their national government admonishing their citizens to avoid the product. Only recently, over a decade later, have some iPhone users . Suffice it to say, the default app did not win out.
Consider also the PC space. When it comes to desktop PC operating systems, Microsoft鈥檚 Windows reigns supreme with 鈥攎ore than triple that of their competition out of Cupertino. Yet when it comes to desktop browser market share, Microsoft Edge鈥攖he default browser app on Windows鈥攁ppears to be mostly used to download other browsers. Google鈥檚 .
Perhaps most astonishingly, Safari鈥攖he default browser on Mac computers鈥�, despite Edge being pre-installed on over . This is a familiar tune for longtime PC users, though, as Mozilla鈥檚 Firefox, followed by Google Chrome, historically leapfrogged Internet Explorer.
The bottom line? Default is not destiny.
Additionally, and perhaps most importantly鈥攖oday鈥檚 search business is far more dynamic and competitive than the early days of Yahoo and Ask Jeeves. Companies like Google are less in the traditional search business as we knew it, and instead are in an ever-evolving information retrieval and question-answering business. In this arena, Google is far from dominant.
Competition abounds, ranging from AI鈥攁n area in which OpenAI and Microsoft appear to be leading鈥攖o mobile applications like Yelp, to social media apps like TikTok, and even personal assistants like Amazon鈥檚 Alexa and Apple鈥檚 Siri. In this new world, users ask questions and want clear answers鈥攚hether they come from a Wikipedia search result, an AI bot dispensing answers, or a TikTok video of a twenty-something detailing the latest celebrity gossip.
, mobile phone users鈥攚ho make up 鈥攕pend over four hours per day online. Only twenty-three minutes鈥攐r 12%鈥攐f that time is spent in mobile web browsers, where search engines traditionally live. The rest is spent in apps.
One such app is TikTok. , it was the most-visited website and most-used social media app in 2021, surpassing Google. And for Gen Z, it鈥檚 increasingly becoming . According to Google鈥檚 own internal data, when seeking out information like where to eat lunch, , rather than traditional Google search results.
Of course, Google is not a faultless company. Many Americans, justifiably so, are angered with the company鈥檚 apparent bias against political conservatives, both as well as . Many more have mixed feelings about the company鈥檚 data collection practices.
Yet ultimately, there鈥檚 a reason the majority of Internet users choose Google over its rivals. Google isn鈥檛 a monopoly. Instead, it鈥檚 built a better mouse trap than its contemporaries, and has continued to do so for decades. Google has gone toe-to-toe with and out-competed Yahoo, Ask Jeeves, Bing, DuckDuckGo, and more.
Yet, far from being dominant, Google鈥檚 search engine is facing more competition than ever before鈥攑articularly from the world of AI, as well as social media apps like TikTok.
In the end, the DOJ鈥檚 case against Google is far from rock-solid.