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.

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.

I thought this was only about the search app/widget, not also about the browser and the browsers default search engine. My bad.

But I don't think it's just shifting down the problem.

Right now the search app, browser and search engine of the browser are all Google. I don't think an unremovable* search widget on phones is necessary. And I think Google wants to keep it there because they know people will choose Google, especially since that one is installed by default and users just get the choice between installing an extra app or skip that step.

*unless you install a new launcher.

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.

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.

That’s a nice compromise, I like that as a default

are you advocating for the same solution here with search engines...? Because that would just give the same result.

> What else could they do?

Mandate that the "choice screen" must display the top 5 search engines in the EU by market share as identified by an established, independent market research firm. If the regulator or a competitor feel that Google is not executing this mandate in good faith they can take Google to court.

Done. Justice works. Pay for placement, my ass.

This has basically the same effect as an auction model except that you totally lock out the smaller search engines like Ecosia.

Is improving the market for startups like Ecosia your goal, or just to decrease Google's marketshare (by increasing the market share of other big tech search engines like Bing/Yahoo/Amazon Product Search)?

Being somebody's search engine is scarcity. As a society we've been solving scarcity for thousands of years with auction-based models.

> Is improving the market for startups like Ecosia your goal, or just to decrease Google's marketshare (by increasing the market share of other big tech search engines like Bing/Amazon Product Search)?

While supporting startups is a good aspiration, it's not the purpose of antitrust action. The job of the regulator should be to punish Google for its illegal conduct, prevent it from committing additional crimes, and create opportunities for competitors so that a free market can re-establish itself.

Whether the competitors are big or small is outside of its purview. A competitive market for general web search in which there are 5 big healthy firms working to win over customers is absolutely an improvement over a monopoly.

Allowing Google to further enrich itself via the remedy does not support these goals and I suspect there's zero chance the EU will let it happen.

Also, the regulator should ensure that Google doesn't do silly things like highlight Amazon Product Search on a screen where you choose which engine you want to search the whole web with. I'm fairly confident they will do their job. These guys are not amateurs.

> While supporting startups is a good aspiration, it's not the purpose of antitrust action.

Antitrust action is about keeping everyone in the market on a level playing field and startups have the most to gain from this. Although to be fair, you're right - the EU ruling did not really tell Google how to implement their decision. Maybe they should've been more specific?

> Also, the regulator should ensure that Google doesn't do silly things like highlight Amazon Product Search on a screen where you choose which engine you want to search the whole web with. I'm fairly confident they will do their job. These guys are not amateurs.

I have zero faith in EU regulators after Article 11/13.

Actually, your first choice, i.e. random list, would be great! If, as a consumer, the search engine you end up with would end up not being to your liking, you'd hit the browser extension marketplace and look for another default search engine and search engines would face (more or less) a level playing field.

This MAY seem like an absurdity, if one has been in the internet channel economics business for so long that one can't remember what a free market looks like, but THAT would be a free market.

If it is a random list of all search engines, I will be registering 10,000 search engines named every dictionary word...

...and all of them will be shit meaning that, in every single case, the user will go looking for another default search engine using the browser extension marketplace or the web or a review website or some other discovery facility that's actually useful. Your 10.000 search engines business would go broke and they would disappear from the list of search engines getting randomly selected from. Making the random list useful again. Behold the power of free market economics. It could only be a long-term equilibrium if it actually delivered something that was in the consumer's best interests, rather than being designed for the purpose of handing the largest-possible pile of cash to Google.

The real clash in opposing world-views that's going on here is that the competition authorities are trying to enforce a system of free consumer choice. And there are a bunch of people in Silicon Valley doing a Jack Nicholson impression going "Free choice? You want free choice? The consumer can't HANDLE free choice!"

You do (1). Give me an alphabetically-ordered list of search engines and let me choose for myself. If the user takes .0001% of the responsibility here and makes anything resembling an informed decision, everyone wins — Google avoids antitrust action, the user gets the search engine they want, and all competitors are represented.

Maybe the auction proceeds could go to charity?

It wouldn't change things competitively, but it would be good for the charity.

They could give the choice to the user... When you boot up your phone for the first time, it would ask you to choose a default from a list of the 5-10 most popular search engines, sorted at random?