A judge ruled that Google’s ubiquitous search engine has been illegally exploiting its dominance to squash competition and stifle innovation.

“WASHINGTON (AP) — A judge on Monday ruled that Google’s ubiquitous search engine has been illegally exploiting its dominance to squash competition and stifle innovation in a seismic decision that could shake up the internet and hobble one of the world’s best-known companies…”

  • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    72·
    3 months ago

    Google can be REQUIRED to give users A CHOICE of Search Engines.

    Don’t they, err, already do this?

    I mean a search engine is literally just a website and absolutely nothing prevents you from just going to duckduckgo.com or bing.com or wherever. Don’t think Chrome prevents you from accessing other search engines in general, and last time I used it (admittedly a while back) it had a setting to change the search engine used by default if you just typed something into the address bar.

    • Melody Fwygon@lemmy.oneEnglish
      31·
      3 months ago

      Don’t they, err, already do this?

      No, They don’t. They have stolen that initial choice from you by paying companies to be the “default” choice. They do this to capture those who are lazy or indolent about their choices, or to entrap those who are too un-savvy to change the preference.

      • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
        1·
        3 months ago

        You do know there’s a big difference between a “default” option and a “mandatory” setting, right? Specifically that you do, in fact, have a choice to change a default?

        Not forcing the user to proactively make a choice is not the same thing as denying the user the ability to choose.