Are You Ready to Ditch Google Search?
Google search is so ubiquitous that it borders on the ridiculous to suggest an alternative. Yet the question about alternatives to Google most certainly has surfaced following last month’s ruling by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) that Google is an illegal monopoly that broke anti-trust laws. On grounds that the tech giant has become the biggest and the best search engine by cheating, the presiding judge in the case against the company, Amit Mehta argued, “Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly”.
To be precise, it is Google's search operation that has been deemed a monopoly and not the company in its entirety. This is because Google’s anti-competitive behaviour crowded out other search engines such as Bing when the company signed exclusive deals with cell phone manufacturers such as Apple and Samsung to pre-install Google as the default search engine on their devices. In exchange, Google shared advertising revenue with these companies that has been raking in millions for them.
Since most people can’t be bothered to explore alternatives to the default settings on their devices - what behavioural economists refer to as default bias - Google has captured more than ninety percent of the global online search market. Outside of China, the only place that Google is not the default search option is on Microsoft Edge, which uses Bing. As one political commentator put it, Google’s “monopolization (is) in controlling…access to (the) distribution of search engines and thwarting rivals”. US authorities deemed this behaviour anti-competitive and therefore, illegal.
While the narrowness of the case against Google i.e., exclusively focused on browser based mobile search, may make all this sound like a storm in a teacup, this case does in fact speak to broader issues regarding innovation and inequality. After all, monopolies by their very nature are symbols of inequality that represent a threat society due to their concentrated economic power, which results in disproportionate influence in the market.
A Threat to Democracy and an Obstacle to Genuine Innovation
This raises two issues regarding Google’s monopoly status. Firstly, as a threat to democracy and secondly, as an obstacle to genuine innovation.
Whether intentional or accidental, Google's control over access to information has emerged as a threat to democracy. Analysts, both on the left and the right of the political spectrum, argue that Google could or may already be deploying tactics that result in the privileging of certain search results and the suppression of others. In the context of the information society that the world has become, this definitely poses a threat to democracy.
The other issue, which seems to have generated some debate in this anti-trust case revolves around market dominance in relation to innovation. At the heart of the notion of progress in capitalist societies is the idea that complacency seeps into the fabric of monopolies that dominate certain sectors. Based on the Schumpeterian notion of creative destruction, this necessitates the emergence of startups to disrupt the status quo, bringing in new innovations based on fresh perspectives that drive evolutionary change in technological development. Thus, highlighting the significance of startups as a counterbalance to the inertia of established Big Tech. In this regard, Google’s crowding out of others and their subsequent domination of online search, may, in fact, be stifling innovation in the sector.
Break up Google?
The DOJ’s response to Google’s monopoly status has been to float the idea of breaking up the company. Some ideas that it is mulling include divesting both Google's Android operating system and Chrome as well as forcing a possible sale of AdWords.
Silicon Vally’s response to this has been quite interesting. Tech insiders themselves appear to have contrasting views regarding the impact of Big Tech on innovation. One view is that big companies are better drivers of innovation due to the scale of investment and related stability within in-house R&D labs, which results in the emergence of brilliant new technologies. The opposing view is that it’s better to let many flowers bloom as the diversity of ideas emerging from a large pool of small start-ups produces better innovation.
I’m inclined to lean towards the latter view. However, from a sociological perspective, I would argue that both these views neglect engagement with the broader question of the power of monopolies as agents with undue influence in society—something that the US’ DOJ and its Federal Trade Commission seem to be well aware of given that Google is not the only company in their cross hairs. Upcoming cases that the DOJ has lined up include actions against Amazon, Apple and Meta. In this regard, we are definitely entering an era in which regulators are catching up with the regulatory entrepreneurship of Big Tech, albeit at a less than satisfactory pace.
Could the Case against Google Fast-track the Development of a New Generation of Search Engine Models?
Whether one agrees with breaking up Big Tech or not, a third view that has emerged in relation to this particular anti-trust case is that Google search is becoming less relevant to the world. It is argued that browser-based search is on the decline, whilst app-based searches on platforms such as Amazon and Facebook are increasing. Meanwhile, AI is re-shaping the nature of search. Some AI-driven products entering the search arena include Anthropic’s Perplexity and Google’s own Gemini.
Meanwhile, it doesn’t seem as though Google’s fragmentation into smaller companies is on the horizon. The general consensus is that the most likely remedy to be prescribed by the DOJ will be to halt Google’s exclusive deals, whilst ensuring that search alternatives are presented to the public. In this regard, we are likely to see “choice screens” popping up on our devices in the not-too-distant future.
I was surprised to discover that there are a variety of search engines apart from Google--further evidence that the tech giant's cunning tactics to keep the public oblivious to alternatives has worked. In any event, there are many conventional search engine alternatives that function similar to Google by providing links to information resources in response to queries. A key feature of many (not all) standard search engine alternatives to Google is that these products set themselves apart by prioritising user privacy.
Meanwhile, contemporary challengers to Google have developed natural language processing (NLP) AI models, which provide answers to user queries with a strong focus on enhancing users’ interactive experiences. Consequently, what we are seeing, is the emergence of an array of search chatbots that provide complete answers to questions rather than a list of links. In other words, these new AI search models are doing the hard work of figuring out answers to our questions, instead of just giving us access to information whilst leaving us to figure out answers for ourselves.
Based on the new models that are emerging, I would argue that the future of search is going to change dramatically in the next few years. We are all going to have to become ace prompt engineers. Keep an eye on Gen Z and Gen Alpha. Not encumbered by old search habits, they will likely figure it out sooner than the rest of us.
So, are you ready to choose an alternative to Google search? Here are some alternatives to Google, which include old school search engines as well as new NLP AI models (N.B. this list is not exhaustive).
Old School Search Alternatives to Google
Yahoo: Good old Yahoo, which predates Google, is still going. It offers slightly more privacy than Google.
DuckDuckGo: This search engine’s functionality is similar to Google, except that it decisively prioritises protecting its users' online privacy.
Brave: Similar to DuckDuckGo, Brave does not build user profiles. What distinguishes Brave is that it delivers search results from an independent web index.
Kagi: This is a subscription-based search engine that charges a fee to provide advertisement free search results.
Bing: Perhaps the best-known alternative to Google, Bing comes pre-installed with Microsoft Edge. While it functions similar to Google, Bing does have a head start on integrating natural language processing AI into search queries, by providing it as an option to users. So it actually straddles both these lists.
New Kids on the Block: NLP Search Models
SearchGPT: OpenAI’s search product, SearchGPT, has been released in Beta mode. It provides answers to search queries whilst also citing sources.
Perplexity: As referred to by its makers, Perplexity is a “conversational search engine” (chatbot) that uses “natural language predictive text”. The free version is based on OpenAI’s GPT-3.5 model. Whilst the premium version uses GPT-4 and Claude 2 (a next generation AI assistant).
WolframAlpha: This one's been around for a while. WolframAlpha is an answer engine that provides answers to factual questions based on metrics and computation. It categorises search options into subjects like maths, physics, chemistry, engineering and so on. Unsurprisingly, it is mostly used by students.
Gemini: A NLP AI solution from the Google stable, Gemini provides answers to queries. It was originally released as Bard, ostensibly to compete with ChatGPT.