A raven will not peck out a crow's eyes? Will peck it out! If one crow is DuckDuckGo and the other is Google.
Image by hackernoon.com
Recently, there have been several events that, most likely, went unnoticed by ordinary Internet users, but which are worth talking about. And which may serve as a reason for changing the search engine.
The first bell rang in September and marked the beginning of the antitrust investigation against Google, which is still being conducted by the US Department of Justice. The ministry was interested in the details of agreements on pre-installing Google services on new user devices, data collection technologies, advertising policies and early mergers with other companies. The apotheosis of Google's harassment was the harassment of the Texas Attorney General, who acted as an independent 'investigator' and posed to Google exactly the same questions as the official US Department of Justice group of 50 attorneys general.
Ken Paxton, Attorney General of Texas, announces an investigation against Google outside the jurisdiction of the US Supreme Court. September 9, 2019. (photo by Andrew Harrer, Bloomberg)
One might think that the US Department of Justice was unable to control the economy of the IT giant and, deprived of any technical means of verifying the taxes received, decided to push Google against the wall. We are not interested in how many dollars the US Department of Justice will be able to shake out of Google, but it makes us think about the company's monopoly position.
If the smartphone has a shell from the manufacturer, then with due luck you can remove the Google search bar completely, but in the OHA reference product (Open Handset Alliance, 84 companies developing Android) this will not work. This is probably one of the reasons why the investigation launched against the search engine has already moved to itself Android.
Probably, the US Department of Justice also saw a graph of Google's income. 136 billion in net income a year is unlikely to leave anyone indifferent
There are other negative changes in the Google environment that are hard to miss, such as the increase in the number of ads. But the main reason that prompts to abandon the search engine altogether is the degradation of its main idea of openness and freedom to choose a search provider.
The current antitrust investigation against Google is different from those in the past. As a rule, any company is simply summoned to court and sentenced according to the charges brought against it. You must have already heard out of your ears how the American courts work. If Google's lawyers took it into their heads to deny the guilt, it could completely paralyze the company's work, which would be caused by the influx of inspectors into offices and technicians in server rooms. No, in such courts they argue only about the amount of punishment, since the decision to receive additional money from the company was made at the highest political level. But, apparently, all the old methods have already exhausted themselves, since in the current legal proceedings, Google's competitors have begun to be attracted as witnesses for the prosecution. You heard right, friends, the role of accusers was delegated to competing companies through second hands, and it is they who now formulate the essence of the claims against Google. It was done very simply and unpretentiously: competing companies were sent the same questions as Google, with a proposal to answer them in the spirit of 'how and why should be'. Despite the fact that we are talking about a violation of antitrust law, which “ kind of '' legitimizes the participation of competitors in the process, do you think that, taking advantage of the opportunity and the widespread IT illiteracy of the American establishment (which we saw in the investigation against Facebook), will this process turn into a beating? In essence, the claims against Google boil down to discrimination of small business in relation to large (the result Amazon will be shown faster than the result of a stall from the gateway), to the storage of a black list of sites that has nothing to do with the requirements of the law (on the prohibition sites with child pornography as an example), and so on in the same spirit.
While the Google logo rounds are tightly squeezed in the grip of justice, it would be interesting to know which of the company's competitors the prosecutors turned to for help. What search company do they consider to be financially clean and impeccably moral? It is known and confirmed through the media that the search engine DuckDuckGo was contacted for technical assistance in filing a claim.
But why was this particular search engine chosen? The answer is very simple – DuckDuckGo does not offer any paid services, does not place targeted advertisements, does not track user activity, does not enter into questionable deals, and calls its absolute privacy as its main 'killer feature'. We can say that the DuckDuckGo search engine does the same thing as Google, just the opposite, a kind of mirror image of it. A cheerful white duck (and maybe a goose) promises one simple thing – anyone who makes a request gets the best result, regardless of place, time, gender, financial situation. The result will be the same for everyone. In other words, DuckDuckGo does not maintain a directory of users and does not show them personalized ads.
It is not customary to talk about this openly, but how do you like the statement that in the United States Google is actively turning over its users to the police and courts? On the start page of the search engine DuckDuckGo, you can find out that in 2017 alone, Google responded to about 100,000 requests from law enforcement officers, that 75% of sites have Google trackers (collectors of user information), that Google is such a monster with eyes on stalks. This goose from Pennsylvania (legal address of DuckDuckGo) will help law enforcement officers bring new charges against Google, which, in theory, should not even leave a wet place. Whether or not this tectonic shift happens, Google will clearly not stay as we remember it. Most likely, this will result in additional compensation for the United States and a new ledger of the user agreement with hundreds of checkmarks, giving the company the right to continue to dispose of our electronic essence at its discretion. This case is also unique in that FAS Russia is indicated as an example to follow in some Western media, this is the first time in my memory.
These events, which were not noticed by almost anyone, cause thoughts about straws, which would be nice to start laying, and here's why …
When it comes to Russia, which gives Google the minimum income compared to the EU or the US, the consequences of the decisions of its FAS are not very important, the changes will in any case be local in nature. But the situation changes radically when a person is given the opportunity to abandon Google services in a highly profitable dollar region. The consequences of this will hit everyone, as Google will have to fundamentally change its approach to profit in order to maintain the level of income for its shareholders. This means that we will all have more advertising, and it will be everywhere, wherever possible. And it's time to think about which applications and services from the Google ecosystem we can refuse if we are not ready to pay to disable ads.
The search engines Google (left) and Yandex (right) follow the user by offering products (elephant) in the home region. The problem is that if you turn off location detection in the smartphone settings, then after that the correct operation of GPS and navigation applications is not guaranteed.
DuckDuckGo search shows the same results to absolutely all users, and offers to use third-party maps to determine the location
The number of users of the private search engine DuckDuckGo has already surpassed 40 million. And this value is directly related to the behavior of Google
An ordinary person, convinced of this, can only be associated with Google with a search engine, free Gmail, the Google Chrome browser, YouTube and navigation using Google Maps. And Google's cloud drive, which is likely packed full of photos. In addition to the YouTube site, which monetizes folk art, all these services are easily replaced by Yandex, Yahoo, Bing, but they inconvenience those users who are accustomed to 'having everything in one place'.
Friends, in this material there is no practical advice, but only a warning about an impending storm front on Google. One in the field is not a warrior, and even such a powerful company as Google will eventually bend to the decision of fifty-one prosecutors. I propose to discuss what is happening and answer a few questions:
- Are you willing to pay Google to turn off ads?
- Are you ready to ditch Google products entirely?
- Looking for a personalized search?