Privacy-based search engine DuckDuckGo published a study on Monday that found that allowing smartphone users to search their default search engine could result in Google losing 20 percent of its search market.
DuckDuckGo, a competitor to Google search, recently met with the Department of Justice and asked the agency to create a preferences menu on Android so that users can easily switch to different search providers.
This report appears as the DOJ and states continue to prepare anti-trust cases against Google.
Google controls 95% of the US search market, 98% of the UK search market and 98% of the Australian search market.
The DuckDuckGo proposal to give users a preference menu in which they can choose their default search engine found that this proposal could reduce Google’s dominance in the online search market by 20 percent in the US, 22 percent in the United Kingdom, and 16 per cent in Australia.
DuckDuckGo conducted this study by sampling 12,000 mobile users in these three countries.
“And this could just be the start,” DuckDuckGo wrote in a release on Monday. “Because people are finally able to easily search by default for changes, and because people are familiar with search engine alternatives, we expect even greater changes in the market share as time goes on.”
Gabriel Weinberg, CEO of DuckDuckGo, said in a statement on Monday that her proposal serves as a simple solution to boost more competition for search engines compared to potentially more crushing antitrust solutions.
“We think the data speaks for itself,” Weinberg added, “It’s the missing piece.”
“Our focus is firmly on providing free services that help people every day, lower costs for small businesses and enable more choice and competition, ”said a Google spokesperson for Axios.
Other countries have opted for DuckDuckGo’s proposal and found that offering a “choice screen” or “preferences menu” encourages search engine competition.
Matt Stoller, a research director at the American Economic Liberties Project, wrote that the Russian Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) sued and then settled with Google in 2017, in which Google agreed to present a “choice screen” to all Android phone users who their users choose their default search engine.
“Immediately after the implementation of the selection screen, Yandex restored part of Google’s market share. And their market share stabilized then, ”Stoller wrote.
Sean Moran is a congressional reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SeanMoran3
