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Google just updated its algorithm. The Internet will never be the same (www.bbc.com)

submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 39 points 5 months ago (2 children)

It's concerning to see how much power Google really holds over small websites

"I understand that Google doesn't owe us or anyone else traffic," says Navarro, of HouseFresh. "But Google controls the roads. If tomorrow they decide the roads won't go to an entire town, that town dies. It's too much power to just shrug and say, 'Oh well, it's just the free market,'" she says.

As we've seen so many times, they got their foot in the door by actually being the best, but now only really keep that position by paying to be the default on most devices. Given how Microsoft were forced to offer browser choices on Windows, is there hope that Google are forced to offer choices on Android and Chrome?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (3 children)

Google controls one set of roads, people choose which roads to use.

On Android, you're free to install any browser and search engine you wish. For example, "Bing for Android" is already a thing.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

I'm not sure the choice between Bing or Google, two search engines controlled by giant corporations who make money from advertising, is enough of a choice for a truly free Internet. And as the Bing outage last week showed us, most other search engines are just Bing repackaged.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

Search engines are not baked into Android, they get exposed through apps like everything else.

The choice is limited to every search engine out there... which are not many, but what can you do, it takes a lot of resources to spin up a search engine.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Just because there is a choice doesn't mean that the casual user is aware of it. You could always chose to install Firefox on Windows, but Microsoft still got done for pushing IE as the default.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago

MS got dinged because they claimed Windows couldn't work without MSIE, which was a lie... and they had a large market share.

Nowadays Apple forces everyone to use Safari on iOS, and nobody bats an eye.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 5 months ago

People choose not to choose. They're not interested in engaging with the space or technology any deeper than the default.

Exploiting this fact to the point of defacto monopoly should still be considered wrong.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 5 months ago

Actually Google has been forced to offer choices on Android in the EU, but for existing devices the prompt only consists of a permanent notification that you can easily ignore: my partner has been ignoring it for the past month.