How evil is Google really?
The article “Wie böse ist Google wirklich?” (How evil is Google really?) in “Wiener Zeitung” by Mathias Ziegler explores the dominance of Google in the search engine market over the past 25 years, highlighting its significant market share and the challenges this poses for competition. Since its beta phase ended in 1999, Google quickly became a global leader in search technology, significantly influencing how we access information online.
Prof. Martina Lindorfer and Prof. Stefan Neumann commend Google’s effectiveness in delivering accurate search results and its superior mapping service. Martina acknowledges, ‘Google delivers the best results because of its market dominance,’ yet she expresses a personal conflict between using Google for its efficiency and opting for privacy-focused, open-source alternatives like DuckDuckGo. Lindorfer criticizes Google for displaying boxes in search results that contain content it does not own, which deters users from visiting the original websites, thus adversely affecting those sites’ revenues, particularly media outlets.
The article discusses Google’s dominance in the tech industry, which is attributed to its ability to absorb competition and integrate various technologies into its ecosystem. The EU’s initiative to establish a European search index as an alternative to Google underscores the significant financial investment required. Google’s investments in education and non-profits, although beneficial, are partly strategic, aimed at cultivating a workforce that benefits its operations. Concerns are raised about Google’s potential influence on academic research, suggesting that its funding could compromise the integrity of scientific studies. Martina emphasizes that this contrasts with public universities’ goal of serving the public interest, highlighting a fundamental difference in objectives between corporate and academic research.
The European Union has introduced regulations like the Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act to foster competition, particularly on mobile devices, but deeply rooted power structures make significant changes uncertain. Google’s strategy includes substantial financial investments to remain the default search engine across various platforms, further solidifying its market position.
Data privacy concerns are also discussed, with Google’s collection of user data, even in private browsing modes, highlighted as problematic. The integration of commercial and non-commercial search results and the influence of Google’s advertising business on search outcomes are critiqued.