Judge rules: Google illegally holds monopoly over Internet search
A federal judge has ruled that Google violated antitrust laws by creating a monopoly with its popular search engine.
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Google isn’t playing in the sandbox. Or maybe the company is just getting too big for its britches. Those are the messages coming from the U.S. Department of Justice, where a federal judge recently ruled that the company has illegally monopolized the online search and advertising industry through its long-standing partnerships with tech giants like Samsung and Apple.
Google leadership is obviously not happy about the decision. The President of Global Affairs says they will appeal. Nevertheless, now is a good time to rethink our dependence on Google and consider the alternatives. After all, we don’t want to have to “Google” anything, and there is a whole other world of search engines out there where we can use Bing, Ask and DuckDuck to our heart’s content.
Why not Google?
Google is the leading search engine because it’s fast, easy to use, and integrates with a number of other apps and tools you probably already use – like YouTube, Gmail, and Google Docs. It’s also popular because it’s the default search engine on most mobile devices, including Apple’s Safari, and that’s where the Justice Department’s argument comes in. Google’s parent company Alphabet Inc. paid Apple $20 billion in 2022 to be the default search engine for Safari on iPhone, iPad, and Mac.
But standing out from the crowd isn’t the only reason to send your search traffic elsewhere. Behind the colorful, familiar Google logo lie decades of concerns about privacy, personal data spying, and search results that aren’t always what you’re looking for. Aside from the social media platforms we willingly upload everything about our lives to, Google probably knows more about you than any other company, and uses that knowledge to serve you ads it thinks you’ll click on.
With your personal information at the heart of its business model, Google wields incredible power and is being sued in the US and abroad for this very reason. Ironically, this has led to Google’s own search trends showing huge spikes recently for questions like “What is the best alternative to Google?” and “What is the most honest search engine?”
Is there a more private search engine than Google?
If privacy is your top priority, DuckDuckGo offers an alternative that might meet your needs. DuckDuckGo is built on the premise that relevant search results don’t have to involve sharing personal information. As such, DuckDuckGo doesn’t track searches or store your data to build a portfolio about you. The DuckDuckGo interface is clean and straightforward, presenting results in a Google-like manner, with filters for region, date, and other criteria.
DuckDuckGo, like Google, also offers search for news, images, videos, and other types of results, but the company puts a lot of emphasis on its privacy features. You can even upgrade to Privacy Pro (for $9.99 a month) to get access to a built-in VPN, remove personal information from data brokers who sell your information, and perform identity theft recovery if needed.
The downsides are minimal, but worth considering: Without personalized tracking, the search engine’s results may be a little less relevant to you. For most searches, this isn’t a huge problem, but Google has the edge when it comes to personalized results. Also, DuckDuckGo may have fewer results for niche topics—anyone particularly interested in spinning dog hair into yarn or collecting ball-jointed dolls?! However, the company draws on hundreds of sources, including Bing and Yahoo!, in addition to its own web crawler, so you’ll rarely find results that leave something to be desired.
What is the best search engine for visual results?
If you want eye-catching results, Bing is the place to go. Microsoft’s search engine competitor emphasizes high-quality images and videos and likes to add little pop-up tools and bells and whistles wherever possible.
The actual layout of the results page is very similar to Google, but more reminiscent of Instagram or Pinterest compared to Google’s more austere look and feel. Bing also offers search suggestions and provides larger previews of news, Wikipedia entries, and other results up front.
Bing was also one of the first search engines to use AI, and gives you full access to Microsoft’s Copilot AI to answer questions and pull data from the web, providing summaries of the most important topics. Bing also offers a rewards program where you can earn points that you can exchange for real goodies, which is a decent incentive.
Search results suffer a bit from the “that’s just not Google” bug and ad placement can sometimes ruin the otherwise super cool aesthetic and vibe. Worst of all is when the site listings are ads but Bing sneakily blends them in with your authentic search results. I don’t like that. Bing also doesn’t promise the same privacy as DuckDuckGo and is linked to your Microsoft account (assuming you have one).
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What happened to Yahoo!?
The heated search engine war between Google and Yahoo! may be long over, but Yahoo! is still one of the most visited sites on the Internet and its search is nothing to sneeze at. Since the site is primarily powered by Bing, the results are similar to those on Microsoft’s search site, which means they’re pretty good.
You may be wondering why you should even use Yahoo! when it uses Bing, and that’s a good question. Yahoo! isn’t just a search engine, of course; all the extra features and tools are the real attraction here.
Yahoo! Finance remains one of the best places to go for business news and stock market information. The news and sports coverage is comprehensive, and I still use Yahoo! Mail. Yes, that officially makes me old, but I’m in good company with more than 220 million people.
Although Yahoo! has a powerful search function, it is still a one-stop shop for many Internet users who are not so familiar with the Google ecosystem.
A major criticism of Yahoo! Search is simply… what happened? It’s not the top-of-the-line product of Marissa Mayers’ golden years (she was CEO from 2012 to 2017) and I miss those days. Today, Yahoo! is like Facebook compared to Instagram and just doesn’t have that hip club atmosphere that everyone wants to hang out in. Also, Yahoo! Search is getting some updates and changes and it shows.
Still, it’s a strong argument if you like the idea of having a search engine alongside a modern email client, news aggregation, and real-time stock market information.
What about AOL search? Or Ask?
AOL is still active as a web search engine, albeit under the same name as Yahoo!, and is not as successful as it once was. The interface is sleek and uncluttered like Yahoo!’s, with the option to filter out potentially offensive results. The image search filters are top-notch, but not as good as Google’s. Privacy is not its strong suit, though; location and activity tracking are enabled by default, so be sure to turn these off if you want to remain unnoticed.
Old internet fans probably remember when Ask Jeeves was the most fantastic website around. Today, Ask.com is all that’s left, and while it’s not quite as revolutionary as it was two decades ago, it’s still worth considering as a replacement for Google. The site works best when you ask a question, but returns results like other search engines in an instantly familiar list format.
The biggest downside to using Ask.com is the occasionally random search results. For example, if you search for “Travis Kelce,” results for a number of other Travis names – singer Randy Travis, ex-Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, and even building contractor Travis Perkins – appear more frequently than anything about the NFL player. This may be because Ask outsources its search duties to other companies and heavily litters the search results with paid placements.
What alternatives are there to Google search?
There are dozens of other niche sites where you can start your web search online as well.
- The search engine Ecosia plants trees in ecologically sensitive areas when you use it and promises to protect your privacy.
- Gibiru is another privacy-focused alternative. According to Gibiru, there is no activity tracking, no ads, and no agenda following you around the internet.
- If you’re looking for a more emotional connection, check out UK site Mojeek. They also say they won’t track you, nor will they sell your data. But what’s really interesting about it is that you can search by emotion. Type in your search query and click on an emoji-like icon, such as a heart for “love,” a laughing face for “haha,” and a surprised face for “wow.” When I searched for “Olympic breakdancer Raygun,” the site returned some unique and different results when I saw the “love” icon versus the “sad” icon. It’s interesting, but still niche and looks like the early iteration of an idea versus something worth switching to now.
There are many more alternatives out there, so if you’ve found a Google alternative that you can’t stop telling your friends about, let me know!
Jennifer Jolly is an Emmy Award-winning columnist and on-air correspondent covering consumer technology. The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of USA TODAY. Contact her at [email protected].
