Google admits anti-competitive conduct involving Google Search in Australia
57 comments
·August 18, 2025SilverElfin
Aurornis
If you want a real answer: If one country started implementing fines so massive that it was devastating multi-national companies then many companies would simply stop serving those countries.
We got a little peek into this when the GDPR was rolled out and many small and medium companies simply blocked GDPR countries rather than risk the massive fines spelled out in the GDPR. This has lessened somewhat as it has become more clear that those massive fines aren’t being handed out and the language has been clarified, but I sat through multiple meetings where companies were debating if they should block GDPR countries until the dust settled even though they believed themselves to be compliant. They didn’t want to risk someone making a mistake somewhere and costing the company a percentage of global revenues.
Talking about massive fines that destroy big companies and crush their executives is really popular in internet comment sections but it would be extremely unpopular if people woke up one day and found Google was blocked in their country for fear of violating some law with extreme damages.
throw_a_grenade
So, iiuc your argument, they're too big to punish by lawful process in democratic countries. Then I argue they should be split up, which is another popular argument.
Where do I sign up to be too big to punish?
svat
If I'm reading this correctly, this is about the deals Google had, between December 2019 and March 2021, with Telstra, Optus and TPG (apparently Australia's three largest telecommunications companies), to be the default (and only) pre-installed search engine on Android phones sold by those companies, and those companies would in return be paid by Google some fraction of its search-ads revenues.
Some things I'm curious about, and would be helpful context:
- Why did they stop in 2021, and is it normal for these things to take 4+ years to resolution?
- Does Google have similar deals in other countries, e.g. in the US does it have similar deals with T-Mobile, Verizon, AT&T? If yes are they are similarly anticompetitive, and if not why not?
- Similar question about the agreements Google has with Mozilla and Apple, to be the default search engine on their browsers.
- Roughly how much would this deal have been worth to Google? I imagine it's not very likely the providers would have chosen a different default search engine, though without this deal they'd likely have more options pre-configured so users would have had more choice (and this I imagine is the primary anti-competitiveness complaint in the first place).
thrown-0825
Definitely not anti-competitive in the rest of the world though.
Google is a plague, and the sooner its gone the better.
avazhi
Just to be clear, Google makes $55m in profits every 2.5 business hours.
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CobrastanJorji
If Google has 5 billion users, that's about 5 cents per user per day.
petesergeant
Sure, but how much of that is from this deal? The goal isn’t to stop Google from doing business, it’s to make this behaviour unprofitable with a little wrist slap too. And also a shot across the bow that if they continue to do it it’ll be enforced much more strongly.
mhh__
Good deal, search and YouTube are both pretty good
ulfw
If they were that good, why would Google have to waste money pre-installing them as defaults?
quantummagic
That really misses the point. That is, fines do nothing if they are a rounding error on revenue.
senectus1
here is hoping that the penalty means a whole lot less than the precedance...
They have now set a "bar" for acceptable behaviour... the 55million is just a "you've been put on notice"
metaphor
Using bottom line of their most recent quarterly income statement[1], and given Google operates 24/7, then that's more like every 4.3 business hours. /s
[1] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1652044/000165204425...
Aurornis
> Telstra and Optus to only pre-install Google Search on Android phones they sold to consumers, and not other search engines.
> In return, Telstra and Optus received a share of the revenue Google generated from ads displayed to consumers when they used Google Search on their Android phones.
So Telstra and Optus entered into this agreement and profited from it, too. Singling out Google is a strange choice given that all parties profited.
AdieuToLogic
> So Telstra and Optus entered into this agreement and profited from it, too. Singling out Google is a strange choice given that all parties profited.
Kind of like how Microsoft was found[0] to do something similar with PC manufacturers?
0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....
judge123
Is anyone actually going to switch their default search engine on their phone now? We're so locked into the Google ecosystem. Feels like a slap on the wrist that won't change user habits one bit.
ethan_smith
DuckDuckGo's market share has grown to around 2.5% globally despite the friction, suggesting that a meaningful minority of users will switch when given clearer choices.
godelski
I'm one of those people. It seems like all search engines give pretty similar results, so why not use the one with more privacy? I can even do a quick LLM ask on DDG and with different models. Helpful when search terms are not getting the right match.
I think most people's judgement about DDG is from a few uses and from some time ago. It's worth giving it a shot if you haven't in awhile. But give it a real shot, like use it for a few days to get over the "I hate it because it's different" game that our minds play.
And a major benefit now is you don't just get a fucking popup on your phone every time you're just trying to search something. Like seriously, wtf google. Needy much?
chillfox
I have not used Google for like 4 years now. Their search has not been close to the best for a long time now.
shazbotter
I use Kagi on my phone. Pretty easy switch. Will anyone switch? Demonstrably yes?
DaiPlusPlus
Do us Kagi users have anything like a denonym? Some name we can use like "Kagi-ers" or "Kagools" - but much cooler-sounding, of course...
shazbotter
I dunno, I try not to make corporation use part of my identity. It's a fact I use their products, and I think I like that product, but I'd never claim some attachment beyond they make a decent thing worth paying for.
thrown-0825
Speak for yourself, hasn't been the default on any of my devices for a long long time.
BrouteMinou
Startpage is now my new default. Privacy is their selling pitch.
adastra22
I haven’t been using Google search for years. It is far worse than it used to be.
jader201
The web is also far worse than it used to be.
Content was so much better 15-20 years ago, when Google’s tooling was also better.
99% of content creators create content for a single reason: to monetize it. Usually through ads.
The end result is that most content, even if decent, is ruined by ads.
tombert
Twenty years ago, there was more than dozen websites that people went to.
At this point, what percentage of searches are just end up with the user clicking on Amazon, Reddit, or Wikipedia? So much of the other content is low-effort slop, even before AI.
cwnyth
Agreed. It actually is pretty awful now. Unfortunately, I still find it better than the alternatives (chiefly Bing/DDG). Every time I want to try out DDG, I just find it doesn't quite get what I want either, and Google does just a bit better.
chillfox
Try https://www.startpage.com/, https://search.brave.com/, https://kagi.com/ or https://github.com/searxng/searxng.
You.com used to have really good search, but it looks like they have veered off into the AI chat space instead.
searxng is a self hostable meta search engine that allows you to basically just use the best search engines and easily switch between them.
gabeio
You should give kagi a whirl I rarely need to go past page 1 or even the first result for most queries.
tombert
I haven't found a good replacement for YouTube that isn't just filled with conservative conspiracy stuff, but for search I've been happy with Kagi.
It cost money but that doesn't bother me too much, because it means they have a means of making money that isn't just selling my data. I also like that I get to rank the results instead of a program trying to predict what to rank at the whims of some kind of marketing.
ViscountPenguin
It's a natural consequence of YouTube's practices unfortunately. If the majority of banned users are weird racists and the like, the majority of people looking for an alternative will be likewise.
The only other major market is weird tech nerds like us, but tbh, a lot of us would rather setup a peertube node then actually make any content for it.
tombert
Oh, no argument.
I did used to have Rumble installed on my phone specifically for a single creator that was banned from YouTube, but this guy isn't racist, and isn't even conservative. The ads on the videos were something, lots of conspiracy baiting and "vaccine alternatives" and gold investing. I uninstalled it after a few months because it was using an obscene amount of data, even when I wasn't using the app. I don't know why and I couldn't be bothered to investigate.
I have a super fancy video camera that I bought specifically to make YouTube videos, and I had fun setting it up, but then I realized I don't have any ideas for videos to make.
DaiPlusPlus
> YouTube that isn't just filled with conservative conspiracy stuff
I often see people complaining about this; but it's just not something I ever experience myself (provided I'm using my account, of course). While I do cultivate my YouTube recommendations using the "Do not recommend again" menu item, I think I've only needed to click that a few times a year - plus most of the videos I watch are from video producers I'm subscribed to (mostly retrotech, sci/tech/edu youtubers and archive film accounts; I do subscribe to a bunch of defence-economics and political youtubers but only because they don't engage in theatrics: it's all very bookish and academic, so that also helps keep the bad content away.
...so if you're seeing extremist and/or conspiratorial content, may I ask if you're clicking the "Do not recommend" menu option (not just the Dislike button) - and have you built a Subscriptions list of consistently non-extremist content? I imagine those are the 2 main things that informs YouTube's recommendation algo.
GeekyBear
I changed my default search engine to DuckDuckGo when Google opted me into AI search.
qwertytyyuu
Damn, it still surprises me that Google search pre installed, is not just a normal thing. As in it is pre install because Google pays for it, not because vendors thinks it’s the better search. Seeems more obvious when written out like this
makeitdouble
People had the same reaction back in the days when Microsoft was actively paying and bullying PC makers to preinstall Windows.
ThaFresh
and the proceeds will be returned to the consumers who were affected by this?....
rs186
$55 million is pocket change for Google.
echelon
Oh, that's all?
Google is one of the most anticompetitive companies to have ever existed. MaBell has nothing on the new AI overlords.
The browser / web / search / ads thing is insane, and the fact that they've made it so companies have to pay to protect their own brand is beyond fucked. It ought to be illegal.
And they own the largest media company in the world and have a commanding lead in AI and autonomous vehicles. They're bigger than most countries and are poised for world domination.
Break these MFs up already.
To think the government got mad at Microsoft for IE. Jeez. We used to have a spine when it comes to antitrust.
ares623
That spine belonged to the government, which is now owned by the corporations. To be fair, they still have that spine, probably stronger than ever, but it's being used to protect themselves now.
charcircuit
>The browser / web / search / ads thing is insane
X does it too. Instagram does it too. TikTok does it too. YouTube does it too. Reddit does it too. LinkedIn does it too.
It's not insane, it's the standard way to monetize a platform. You have an app that takes you to a page to discover content. When discovering content ads are shown. When viewing the content ads are shown from the platform.
userbinator
X doesn't have its own browser, and neither do Instagram, TikTok, Reddit, nor LinkedIn. YouTube is basically a part of Google, and it's a good example of anticompetition when they deliberately degrade the performance of their site on non-Google browsers: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38345858
charcircuit
All of them have dedicated mobile apps. X even has a desktop app. These platforms stand on there own and are not trying to replace Chrome. Their apps are for their own platform and not the web platform.
Also the post you linked to targeted users of adblockers and affected Chrome users using adblockers.
echelon
Google owns every pane of ingress to the internet. They own the defaults, and that's what matters to 99.9% of normies. They own the web standards and the whole kit and kaboodle. Nevermind app store monopolies, as that's a whole different subject.
If I own a brand, I have to pay Google ads to rank for my own brand. Google doesn't like the concept of a "URL bar". It's a search bar. My closet competitors can pay for placement against my trademarked name and there's not a damned thing I can do to stop it.
One company should not own all of that surface area. That's practically the whole internet outside of social networks and buying off Amazon.
Google just sits there taxing the whole internet. (And half of mobile...)
Fixes? Here are a few:
1. Take Chrome away. That's the lynchpin of this racket.
2. Make Google (and Apple) support non-scare wall app installs from the web as a default. No hidden settings menus. (The EU would be great and enforcing this.) Don't let them own login or payments either.
3. Best yet: break the company into pieces. If it was good enough for MaBell, it'll be good enough for Google. It'll be worth more as parts anyway - so much of that value is locked away trying to be the sum of parts. YouTube alone is bigger than Disney and Netflix.
charcircuit
My previous post lists other ways users can ingress to the internet. Chrome is not the only app that connects to the internet.
>If I own a brand, I have to pay Google ads to rank for my own brand
Google will still rank your page even without ads. Normal search results are shown after ads. Other platforms as I mentioned before have search ads. This is not a unique thing.
>Google just sits there taxing the whole internet. (And half of mobile...)
Investing billions of dollars into platforms for other people to build upon for free is not "just sitting there." Unlike other apps like TikTok where the company has to spend resources developing mobile apps, websites can utilize the browser Google is writing.
>Take Chrome away.
If you remove a platform a similar one will take its place.
Why aren’t these discouraged with such massive fines that the board and shareholders oust executives? Just another example of how weak the laws are from stopping unfair competition by mega corps. Small businesses and even rich startups have the decks stacked against them.