Bing’s Most Searched For Term Is Hilariously Awkward
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The most searched term in Bing has just been revealed and it is incredibly awkward for the web search engine.
The information was disclosed in an appeal to the EU after another rival search engine was fined over claims it had unfairly taken over the search market.
The European Union’s General Court was addressed by lawyer Alfonso Lamadrid, who said the ‘most common search query on Bing’ was detailed in submitted evidence.
Awkwardly for the Microsoft company, the most searched term on Bing was revealed as being ‘Google’.
The appeal to the EU took place following attempts by Google to get a $5 billion fine dismissed, with the EU accusing the company of ‘illegal’ and anti-competitive practices in relation to its Android operating system, The Independent reports.
According to Margrethe Vestager, the EU competition commissioner, the American multinational technology company had ‘locked down’ Android phones in a ‘Google controlled ecosystem’. Vestager claimed that Google had ‘obstructed the development of competing mobile operating systems which could have provided a platform for rival search engines to gain traffic’, by making sure that other search engines were kept off Android phones by paying operators and manufacturers.
Google argued that ‘people use Google because they choose to, not because they are forced to’. Lamarid said how Google’s market share in ‘general search’ was ‘consistent with consumer surveys showing that 95% of users prefer Google to rival search engines,’ as per Bloomberg.
SEO company Ahrefs confirmed that ‘Google’ was the top global search on Bing. However, it was beaten by ‘Facebook‘ and ‘YouTube‘ in the US.
In 2020, the EU made Google carry out an auction on Android in order to try and create a fairer market around the choice of search engine. The auction meant that rival companies could pay to make their search engines a more visible choice to be users’ default.
However, DuckDuckGo, another search engine which is focused on privacy, criticised the EU’s move as a ‘pay-to-play’ and for encouraging a focus on profits rather than privacy.
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Topics: Technology, EU, Google, Microsoft, Now
Credits
The IndependentThe Independent
