The Stalled Progress of Google’s Search Choice Screen in Europe

Over a year has passed since Google initiated auctions for search engine “choice” screen placements on Android devices in Europe, a response to a significant 2018 antitrust ruling by the European Commission. Despite a record-breaking fine levied against Google over two years ago, substantial change remains elusive.

Dominance Unchallenged and Alternatives Priced Out

Google’s search market share within Europe has remained remarkably stable. The most promising regional search alternatives are increasingly being excluded from the Google-designed “remedy,” which demonstrably favors those with the greatest financial resources to secure listing as an alternative to its dominant search engine on Android smartphones.

The quarterly winners of the choice screen auctions are becoming increasingly homogenous. Industry observers anticipate another unremarkable selection of “winners” will be announced shortly.

Q1 2021 Results: A Focus on Ad-Targeting

The results for the first quarter of 2021 were largely dominated by search options focused on advertising targeting, many of which are unfamiliar to typical smartphone users. These included Germany’s GMX, info.com based in California, and PrivacyWall, a Puerto Rico-based company whose website prominently features the slogan “100% programmatic advertising.” Microsoft-owned Bing also secured a position.

Further down the list were Yandex, the Russian search engine often referred to as the “Google of Russia,” which won eight slots, and Seznam.cz, a long-standing player in the Czech search market, with two slots.

Privacy-Focused Engines Squeezed Out

A significant “loser” in this process was DuckDuckGo, a non-tracking search engine dedicated to online privacy for over a decade, which secured only one slot (in Belgium). Its initial opportunity to secure a universal slot across all markets at the start of the auction process has been almost entirely eroded.

Ecosia, a tree-planting not-for-profit search engine, also experienced limited success, gaining only one slot on the screen presented to Android users in Slovenia. Notably, Ecosia was recently added as a default search option on Apple’s Safari browser across iOS, iPadOS, and macOS, growing its global user base to over 15 million.

Limited Impact for European Alternatives

France’s Qwant, a European search option with a strong privacy focus, received just one slot, and not even within its home market (it was allocated in Luxembourg).

A Failed Remedy?

If European regulators anticipated that a Google-devised “remedy” would automatically restore robust competition to the Android search market, they have been demonstrably proven wrong. The fundamental reality is that Google’s market share has not been diminished, let alone impacted.

Statista data reveals that Google’s search market share on mobile devices (across both Android and iOS, where Google pays Apple billions annually to be the default) stood at 97.07% in February 2021 – an increase from 96.92% in July 2018, when the Commission issued the initial antitrust ruling.

Remarkably, Google has actually increased its market share while this “remedy” has been in effect.

Tech Sovereignty and the Android Choice Screen

This outcome represents a significant failure for EU competition enforcement, more than 2.5 years after the landmark antitrust decision concerning Android. The Commission has also been actively promoting the goal of European tech sovereignty, a concept closely linked to its digital policy initiatives.

In terms of tech sovereignty, the Android choice screen must be considered a substantial failure. It has not only failed to support most homegrown alternatives to Google but has actively hindered the most promising European alternatives by forcing them to compete against ad-funded Google clones.

The Auction Mechanism: Pay-to-Play

The core issue lies in the auction mechanism, which dictates that only companies willing to pay Google the most can secure a position as a default option on Android. Even when European players manage to secure a slot, they often appear alongside other non-European alternatives and Google itself, further intensifying the competitive pressure.

Initially, Google’s choice screen was based on market share. However, it quickly transitioned to a pay-to-play model, immediately reducing the visibility of alternative business models that do not rely on exploiting user data, or, in Ecosia’s case, are not profit-driven.

Concerns from Alternative Search Engines

Alternative search engines contend that they cannot afford to consistently win Google’s choice screen auctions. Participants in the auction are also subject to non-disclosure agreements (NDAs), restricting their ability to publicly discuss the process.

The auction results consistently favor companies aligned with Google’s data-driven business model. From a consumer perspective, the limited and artificially constrained “choice” offered makes selecting Google the logical option, as alternatives are often weaker versions of the same approach.

Ecosia Considers Withdrawal

Ecosia is now contemplating withdrawing from the auction process altogether, reverting to its initial stance of boycotting the auction. After several months of participating in Google’s “pay-to-play” game, the company believes the system is fundamentally biased against genuine alternatives.

Ecosia has observed no positive impact on user numbers over two auction rounds, winning only one slot each time. A final decision on withdrawal will be made after the results of the next auction are revealed.

A “Super Unfair Game”

“We definitely realized it’s less and less ‘fun’ to play the game,” Ecosia founder Christian Kroll stated. “It’s a super unfair game – where it’s not only ‘David against Goliath’ but also Goliath gets to choose the rules, gets a free ticket, he can change the rules of game if he likes to. So it’s not amusing for us to participate in that.”

“We’ve been participating now for nine months and if you look at overall market share in Europe nothing has changed. We don’t know the results yet of this round but I assume also nothing will change – the usual suspects will be there again… Most of the options that you see there now are not interesting to users.”

“Calling it a ‘choice’ screen is still a little bit ironic if you remove all the interesting choices from the screen. So the situation is still the same and it becomes less and less fun to play the game and at some point I think we might make the decision that we’re not going to be part of the game anymore,” he added.

DuckDuckGo’s Perspective

DuckDuckGo founder Gabriel Weinberg expressed similar concerns, stating that the company continues to bid “only to help further expose to the European Commission how flawed Google’s rigged process really is, in hopes they will help more actively take a role in reforming it into something that actually works for consumers.”

DuckDuckGo’s commitment to privacy prevents it from maximizing profits through user data exploitation, resulting in a disadvantage in the auction. The company argues that the auction incentivizes privacy-invasive practices and hinders non-profit initiatives like Ecosia.

Qwant’s Dissatisfaction

France’s Qwant also voiced strong dissatisfaction with the auction, calling for “urgent modification” and emphasizing the need to fully respect the spirit and text of the 2018 Commission decision. CEO Jean-Claude Ghinozzi stated, “We are extremely dissatisfied with the auction system. We are asking for an urgent modification of the Choice Screen to allow consumers to find the search engine they want to use and not just the three choices that are only the ones that pay the most Google.”

Yandex and Brave’s Stance

Russia’s Yandex acknowledged its participation in the upcoming Q2 auction but criticized Google’s implementation for failing to provide genuine freedom of choice. Brave Search, a newcomer to the search space, confirmed it will not participate, arguing that the process prioritizes Google Play Store optimization over user interests.

Google’s “Remedy” and the Commission’s Role

Google’s self-devised “remedy” followed a 2018 antitrust decision and a $5 billion penalty. The implementation remains under scrutiny by EU antitrust regulators. However, Kroll suggests the Commission is allowing Google to buy time rather than address the underlying abusive behavior.

“The way I see this at the moment is the Commission feels like the auction screen isn’t necessarily something that they’ve requested as a remedy so they can’t really force Google to change it — and that’s why they also maybe don’t see it as their responsibility,” he said. “But at the same time they requested Google to solve the situation and Google isn’t doing anything.”

“I think they are also allowing Google to get the credit from the press and also from users that it seems like Google is doing something — so they are allowing Google to play on time… I don’t know if a real choice screen would be a good solution but it’s also not for me to decide — it’s up to the European Commission to decide if Google has successfully remedied the damage… and has also compensated some of the damage that it’s done and I think that has not happened at all. We can see that in the [marketshare] numbers that basically still the same situation is happening.”

A System Designed to Eliminate Interesting Options

“The whole thing is designed to remove interesting options from the screen,” Kroll argued. “This is how it’s ‘working’ and I’m of course disappointed that nobody is stepping in there. So we’re basically in this unfair game where we get beaten up by our competitors. And I would hope for some regulator to step in and say this is not how this should go. But this isn’t happening.”

“At the moment our only choice is to hang in there but at the moment if we really see there is no effect and there’s also no chance that regulators will ever step in we still have the choice to completely withdraw and let Google have its fun but without us… We’re not only not getting anything out of the [current auction model] but we’re of course also investing into it. And there are also restrictions because of the NDA we’ve signed — and even those restrictions are a little bit of a pain. So we have all the negative effects and don’t get any benefits.”

The Winner’s Curse and Exploitation of User Data

Kroll suggested that auction winners are often operating at a loss, prioritizing reach over revenue. “If you look at the bids from the last rounds I think with those bids it would be difficult for us to make money — and so potentially others have lost money. And that’s exactly also how this auction is designed, or how most auctions are designed, is that the winners often lose money… so you have this winner’s curse where people overbid.”

“This hasn’t happened to us — also because we’re super careful — and in the last round we won this wonderful slot in Slovenia. Which is a beautiful country but again it has no impact on our revenues and we didn’t expect that to happen. It’s just for us to basically participate in the game but not risk our financial health,” he added. “We know that our bids will likely not win so the financial risk [to Ecosia as it’s currently participating and mostly losing in the auction] is not that big but for the companies who actually win bids — for them it might be a different thing.”

Google’s Continued Market Share Growth

Kroll points out that the auction model has allowed Google to continue increasing its market share while weakening its competitors. “There are quite a few companies who can afford to lose money in search because they just need to build up market share — and Google is basically harvesting all that and at the same time weakening its competitors,” he argued. “Because competitors need to spend on this. And one element that — at least in the beginning when the auction started — that I didn’t even see was also that if you’re a real search company… then you’re building up a brand, you’re building up a product, you’re making all these investments and you have real users — and if you have those then, if there was really a choice screen, people would naturally choose you. But in this auction screen model you’re basically paying for users that you would have anyway.”

“So it’s really putting those kind of companies at a disadvantage: DuckDuckGo, us, all kinds of companies who have a ‘real USP’. Also Lilo, potentially even Qwant as well if you have a more nationalist approach to search, basically. So all of those companies are put at an even bigger disadvantage. And that’s — I think — unfair.”

A Disappointing Outcome for Privacy and Competition

Since most auction winners are involved in surveillance capitalism, the EU’s competition enforcement efforts have failed to create a viable path for privacy-focused alternatives. Alternatives that do not track consumers or operate on a non-profit basis are being squeezed out.

The Commission was warned about the flaws of the auction model from the outset, but has so far shown itself unwilling or unable to respond, despite proposing new rules for large platforms.

The Commission’s Response

When questioned about the criticism, the Commission provided standard talking points, stating that “a choice screen can be an effective way to promote user choice” and that it is “committed to a full and effective implementation of the decision.”

The Commission confirmed discussions with Google regarding the choice screen mechanism, focusing on its presentation and the selection process for rival search providers.

A Lack of Action

However, with limited progress and genuine alternatives being marginalized, the question remains: what are regulators waiting for?

A pattern of reluctance to challenge tech giants appears to be emerging under Margrethe Vestager’s leadership. Despite a reputation for taking on tech companies, her record on rebalancing the market for mobile search and search ad brokering remains incomplete.

Kroll concludes, “I think they are listening. But what I am missing is action.”