Search Engine Market Share Worldwide - September 2020

Sometimes I only get advertising results for some searches. That's when I switch to ddg where I'll often get what I'm searching for.


I think this is kind of a trend that might be advantageous to alternative search engines. I remember that at some point google would give very accurate results as long as appropriate search terms/options were used. This seems to be no longer the case or at least the results are getting more and more inaccurate and polluted with random garbage that at least on the surface has little to do with what is being actually searched for.
 
Isn't that just a little too ego-centric? You compare your privat homepage with sites like Facebook and Linkedin?
No, and I can't speak for why Facebook or LinkedIn deny certain crawlers. But I find it possible (even likely) that their experiences are similar to mine, just at a much larger scale. However, there is one significant difference: If one of the big content providers on the web (like Facebook or LinkedIn) denies crawling by a some indexing or search company, we can assume that contacts are made, and the decision whether to crawl or deny is made consciously.
 
One reason why I try to not get too religious with search engines is because once they reach critical mass, they then start to mutate into something considerably less ethical. There is nothing stopping DDG going the same way once it gets popular. Check out this old Google ad.

goog.jpg
 
But for more esoteric questions, I sometimes have to jump to google.
Some questions to Google may just be too esoteric.

An application for search warrant looks like this:
 
Some questions to Google may just be too esoteric.

An application for search warrant looks like this:

Yeah that's distressing. Hard to read without feeling disgusted by it.
 
Yep, I don't really mind Google giving useful information to the police. I actually find this considerably less creepy than giving my data to random companies just to make profit (which is a lot more common).

I wonder how much money Google is making the police pay for the data ;)
 
According to https://startpage.com 's statement it's exactly google:
The difference is this:
Startpage can be seen as an GDPR compliant proxy to the Google search engine.

While all this looks fine on the first look, some questions remain. While some narrative is offered

where Startpage B.V. claims to be profitable, Privacy One Group, owned by adtech company System1, acquired a majority stake in Startpage in October 2019. How does that fit in?

Startpage is paying to Google adding to the revenues of the global monopolist. But from where do Startpage's revenues come from?
 
Here's the deal (I'm doing my joe!): They provide free service. I want their free service. They want my data. We have to price ours (data) and theirs (service). Then let the free market decide. I have no problem to share my data with companies like Microsoft (not google), to use their free services. But we need to know how much our data is worth. It is fair. Isn't it?
 
The difference is this:
Startpage can be seen as an GDPR compliant proxy to the Google search engine.
ekvz was responding to Sevendogsbsd's comment regarding DDG results are not as comprehensive as Google. I also was referring to the search results.

While all this looks fine on the first look, some questions remain. While some narrative is offered
where Startpage B.V. claims to be profitable, Privacy One Group, owned by adtech company System1, acquired a majority stake in Startpage in October 2019. How does that fit in?

Startpage is paying to Google adding to the revenues of the global monopolist. But from where do Startpage's revenues come from?

Info about Startpage and Privacy One/System1:
 
But we need to know how much our data is worth. It is fair. Isn't it?
How to measure fairness? When is a price fair, agreed on in a free market?
Does marketpower add to fairness? Can monopolists be considered fair trading partners? How to monetize the risk, that your personal data are given to government agencies?
 
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According to https://startpage.com 's statement it's exactly google:

View attachment 8597

I know. It's not really true though and to be honest i am not very happy with their claim. I'll give them the benefit of doubt but from my experience what they state in this paragraph is misleading at best. While their search results are in fact quite similar to Google they are not identical and Google itself will often times have results that simply don't exist in Startpage's data. I don't have an example right now but there are actually search terms that will yield zero results on Startpage while Google still manages to return a couple dozen and even if of those results are regularly not exactly high quality it's also not that rare for them to have the single exact hit you were looking for. I guess that paying Google for access to their search API simply doesn't mean that you get to clone it even if Startpage's description seems to suggest that.
 
I haven't really investigated, just started <heh> using it on a friend's recommendation. I did find at the time that a google link had about 8 lines of what I assume was tracking info, whereas the startpage link was just to the page or image itself.
 
I know. It's not really true though and to be honest i am not very happy with their claim. I'll give them the benefit of doubt but from my experience what they state in this paragraph is misleading at best. While their search results are in fact quite similar to Google they are not identical and Google itself will often times have results that simply don't exist in Startpage's data. I don't have an example right now but there are actually search terms that will yield zero results on Startpage while Google still manages to return a couple dozen and even if of those results are regularly not exactly high quality it's also not that rare for them to have the single exact hit you were looking for. I guess that paying Google for access to their search API simply doesn't mean that you get to clone it even if Startpage's description seems to suggest that.
Default settings on both search engines could have an effect on the discrepancy of the search results:

Google:
 
Default settings on both search engines could have an effect on the discrepancy of the search results:

Google:

That's interesting. While i've never touched any settings on Google i actually was using an URL that should have included not filtering searches on startpage. Looking at the settings it seems like this is no longer respected. While i'd think what i experienced was also happening while "don't filter" was still applied by default i can't say this for sure as i don't know when exactly my custom URL stopped working. I've just generated a new URL and i'll keep an eye on this.
 
In a lawsuit, filed in a federal court in Washington, D.C. today, the Justice Department accused Google of using several exclusive business contracts and agreements to lock out competition.

Such contracts include Google’s payment of billions of dollars to Apple to place the Google search engine as the default for iPhones. By using contracts to maintain its monopoly, the suit says, competition and innovation has suffered.


It has long been known that Google relies on search traffic from Apple’s popular line of phones. Google’s flagship search engine is the preset default on Apple’s Safari phone browser, meaning that when consumers enter a term on their phone, they are automatically fed Google search results and related advertising.

What’s new is just how central it is to both companies, and to the antitrust case.
 
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