Apple Deal Responsible for Google's Dominance in Search, Says Microsoft CEO

[Sami13496]

I’m sorry MS but this is such BS If it was dependent on market shares then surely Bing would most popular. Because most computers sold are still Windows. And most smartphones sold are Android. There is another reason why Bing isn’t beating Google. It because it a ******* Bing. Who used that besides grandma.

 

[phrehdd]

How hypocritical of Microsoft given all their past exploits that drove competition away time and time again.

 

[6787872]

What ? And presumably Tesla , Amazon and Nintendo too?

correct. especially elon the grifter

 

[jntdroid]

Man there's a lot of MS hate leftover from how the company behaved YEARS ago.

Also, Google isn't much better than MS when it comes to trying to get you to change to Chrome if you're not using it.

Lastly, you really shouldn't judge Bing if you only use it once in awhile. For those claiming Google's dominance because "Bing sucked when I tried it", try giving Bing years of search history and context and just using Google once in awhile, then see which works better.

I'm not a huge fan of either, but some balance in this conversation would be helpful.

 

[Altis]

I'm more curious if Google paid Apple to disable the ability to play youtube videos in the background.

Used to be able to in all of the browsers until around when Premium came out.

 

[vegetassj4]

TIL: There is a 'green' search engine that plants trees: Ecosia

 

[daanodinot]

Man there's a lot of MS hate leftover from how the company behaved YEARS ago.

Also, Google isn't much better than MS when it comes to trying to get you to change to Chrome if you're not using it.

Lastly, you really shouldn't judge Bing if you only use it once in awhile. For those claiming Google's dominance because "Bing sucked when I tried it", try giving Bing years of search history and context and just using Google once in awhile, then see which works better.

I'm not a huge fan of either, but some balance in this conversation would be helpful.

Sorry, I missed you point at first. I still think, all things being equal, Google is the better product. I have all the history stuff disabled, so I’m not sure to what extent it helps for me.

 

[Sami13496]

Satya, got an idea, how about developing a superior product that people naturally want to use? Instead on trying to change default. We can set Bing as default everywhere, but that wouldn’t help, because ppl would change that crabpie back to Google.

 

[rp100]

These days, Google is worthless for surfacing actual info. Somehow all “info” is from a news website or other “authorized source” written at a fifth grade reading level.

Try doing actual searches for information on Google, specifically “unapproved” topics where government overlords actively thwart free debate and discussion (vaccines, monetary policy, measurement of inflation, infectious diseases, pharmaceutical industry corruption, electronic monitoring, overseas military campaigns). Everything is a link to mainstream media or “factcheck” articles designed to make you disengage your brain and move on to the next shiny TikTok video.

I miss the early internet when it was the wild west of ideas - lots of info, lots of opinions, and lots of opportunity to challenge my own beliefs. Someone thinks the earth is flat? Yes I’m going to read that! Not because I believe it, but because I want to get into the author’s mind on how he developed that opinion. 400 years ago it was a heresy to hold heliocentric views. Today? Heresy to hold flat earth views.

The only thing that hasn’t changed in 400 years is the presence of evil people stifling free thought and curiosity. Kind of ironic that Google’s motto is no longer “don’t be evil.”

 

[jntdroid]

Sorry, I missed you point at first. I still think, all things being equal, Google is the better product. I have all the history stuff disabled, so I’m not sure to what extent it helps for me.

Oh I don't disagree with that. My point was simply to mention that it's hard to give a fair comparison if someone does have all of that history and context with Google, and not MS - which I think applies to a lot of people claiming Bing sucks so much.

 

[roland.g]

DuckDuckGo doesn't sell my data.

 

[Sophisticatednut]

Seems like quite a stretch Satya. Google was cemented as the preferred search engine (on Windows browsers) long before iPhone's were even a twinkle in Steve's eye.

How about creating a good product? Bing is still bad and bloated, bing chat have an unbearable "personality" and output unpredictable results since microsoft try to hide which GPT model it's using. Microsoft knows people only use their products when users are unaware of alternatives or when it's the only option.

Google had already achieved search dominance by the time the iPhone launched. It was already a verb.

Isn't this the same company that makes Edge the default browser on Windows? Oops.

And Microsoft is the default operating system on so many computers….hmmm who here has a monopoly on a market

Or, “Google’s dominance in search responsible for Apple‘s deal”. Google was a verb before iPhone existed.

Laughable. Google was dominant long before 2007. Maybe Bing would’ve had more mainstream success if the Windows Phone OS took off, but I think we all know how that went.

says the guy who warns you if you install anything other than Edge as your default browser on Windows.

You want to be the default, pay more. End of story.

That's pretty rich coming from Microsoft who goes out to corner the market by buying up their competitors like Bethesda and Activision. Maybe Microsoft should buy Google? 🤓

Easier to blame someone else than to make Bing something people want to use.

Why go after one major competitor when you can go after two? Maybe Google's anticompetitive agreements with android manufacturers across 70% of the global market has something to do with it as well.

And who is Microsoft blaming for the market share of Windows mobile?

I don’t know if you people missed reading the content or just read the headline.

Apple isn’t accused of anything, google is the accused

And Microsoft CEO is just a witness called to the stand in the United States v. Google LLC is an ongoing federal antitrust case brought by the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) against Google LLC on October 20, 2020. The suit alleges that Google has violated the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 through anti-competitive behavior in the search engine and search advertising markets.

 

[CarAnalogy]

😂😂😂

Yeah, THAT’S what’s been holding them back. By that logic all those fullscreen takeovers in Windows by Edge should be driving usage through the roof!

 

[Mrkevinfinnerty]

DuckDuckGo doesn't sell my data.

I've got some bad news..

DuckDuckGo browser allows Microsoft trackers due to search agreement

The privacy-focused DuckDuckGo browser purposely allows Microsoft trackers on third-party sites due to an agreement in their syndicated search content contract between the two companies.

www.bleepingcomputer.com

 

[3xBoom]

There is so much to say in response to this nonsense (most of which has already been stated in the thread) but I will just ask this: Will this utter silliness stain Satya's legacy?

 

[webkit]

You’re forgetting how Microsoft forced Internet Service Providers to require and conform their customer services around Microsoft Internet Explorer (a/k/a “Spyglass/Mosaic”) and how Microsoft also worked to pollute HTML and other Internet standards so that the Net and websites would only work “right” on Windows.

Bill Gates called it ”embrace and extend” — where Microsoft would “embrace” open Internet standards, and then “extend” them with proprietary Microsoft Windows-only/IE-only standards.

Yeah…”embrace and extend”…embrace like a reticulated python!

This is a fact of history.

There were a few separate antitrust allegations in the DOJ case against MS in the 1990s, I was pointing out one of them. Windows at least still allowed end users to download Navigator or other browsers, allowed end users to get software/apps from various sources, etc. MS even allowed computer OEMs to offer alternative browsers, although incentivized them not to. Apple with the iPhone/iOS not only restricts retailers (AT&T, Best Buy, etc.) but even end users from accessing apps outside the App Store, downloading browsers with alternative browser engines, etc.

 

[Lcgiv]

After Microsoft’s repeated purchases of gaming publishers and developers (even pondering buying Nintendo) solely to try and kill Sony when for so long console wars/ majority console exclusives had become a thing of the past, I just don’t feel that bad for them here…

 

[BaldiMac]

I don’t know if you people missed reading the content or just read the headline.

Apple isn’t accused of anything, google is the accused

And Microsoft CEO is just a witness called to the stand in the United States v. Google LLC is an ongoing federal antitrust case brought by the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) against Google LLC on October 20, 2020. The suit alleges that Google has violated the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 through anti-competitive behavior in the search engine and search advertising markets.

You don't seem to have read any of the posts that you included in your quote. Not a single one said that Apple was accused of anything in court.

 

[daanodinot]

Oh I don't disagree with that. My point was simply to mention that it's hard to give a fair comparison if someone does have all of that history and context with Google, and not MS - which I think applies to a lot of people claiming Bing sucks so much.

That’s true. But the old quote that competition is but a click away still holds. It’s not like a social network where there’s a lot more entrenchment. I actually think a good marketing compaign can get people to switch, even without changing defaults. There’s an opportunity. Some search categories just suck via Google, so there’s a lot to improve upon.

 

[webkit]

So how is this any different then Edge being the default on my Windows computer’s with Bing being the default search engine?

That’s okay on a computer but not a tablet or phone?

It's more about the dominance of the products and agreements between companies. This particular issue today is about an agreement between Google and Apple where Google allegedly pays Apple to help them maintain or increase their dominance in search (and possibly to stay out of the search business). Such agreements can violate antitrust laws.

 

[Sophisticatednut]

And well again, this isn’t a comment on googles market behavior. They aren’t doing a jab, but the CEO is a witness in a federal case against Google answering specific questions as a witness from a 3h+ hearing.

Worldwide, Windows OS still own like 90% marketshare and Android has roughly about 70%.

I think this is more of a MS/Bing problem, rather than a Google/Apple one.

The reason Google got where it did is that the competition were nowhere near. Nothing to do with Apple and any agreements.

I've tried at least Yahoo!, WebCrawler, Lycos, AltaVista, Ask Jeeves, Yandex, Inktomi and AllTheWeb, as well as Bing and Ecosia. For a while, AltaVista was a clear winner.

Then we went through unfathomable merging of results and company ownerships. And being totally inundated by paid results and adverts.

And have now ended up using DuckDuckGo by default, for most things. The country option is quite helpful. But for some reason have Ecosia as default on one instance of Safari.

Have to switch to Google for some purposes - especially one site I use that has its own appalling within-site search service. So I use the site:xxx.yyy.com option and get quite good search (ineffective in DuckDuckGo for my purposes). And for broad-brush shopping, nothing else gets near Google. Though I never buy through those searches - they are always "I wonder if anyone sells..." queries.

But all search these days seems far too soft - it thinks it knows best. If I want to search for "Jhon", there is often a particular reason I don't want results for "John".

There nothing ironic, Microsoft could be the biggest criminal organization in the world, they are still just a witness out on the stand by DOJ.

It is ironic that MS is commenting on monopolistic practices, but that’s a result of experience; being forced to remove IE as the default browser in Windows back in the 90s. Which is kind of laughable in hindsight, but I guess you could argue it was the same thing but different time period. People didn’t know they could download another browser so they often used the default option. Of course, today there are many browser options.

I don’t see why the same shouldn’t apply to Google search in the modern age, especially when there are huge kick backs involved to Apple, etc. People should be made aware of their options. If anything, I see it as government inaction or complacency (especially when government is lobbied by said tech companies).

After Microsoft’s repeated purchases of gaming publishers and developers (even pondering buying Nintendo) solely to try and kill Sony when for so long console wars/ majority console exclusives had become a thing of the past, I just don’t feel that bad for them here…

 

[Nozuka]

I tried switching to bing a couple of times, but the search results are just not as good and it is very easy to notice.

 

[Sophisticatednut]

You don't seem to have read any of the posts that you included in your quote. Not a single one said that Apple was accused of anything in court.

If you actually read they think Microsoft is saying it’s apple’s fault. Apple isn’t even relevant, but the deal Google made is what’s pointed out. You could replace Apple with Samsung.

I didn’t mean that they said apple
Has legal accusations against them, but that they wrongly perceived Microsoft ceo as saying it’s apples fault Google is dominant.

 

[BaldiMac]

If you actually read they think Microsoft is saying it’s apple’s fault.

No, they didn't. Not a single one.

 

[paulovsouza]

I rarely search on Google. I usually search on TikTok (YouTube if it’s a longer step by step instruction needed). I think Bing will need to do more than just AI. And please get a new design team, the UI is awful.