Due to Europe's antitrust settlement, Google must allow new Android users to download other search engines, even if it is a rival search product. Countries with different search engine choices are Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, etc.
The slots for these countries were auctioned off, and one of the big winners is Bing, one of Google's rivals. The options would be available to Android users between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31.
This is currently the biggest news since Microsoft has managed to get its rival product placed in some of Europe's biggest markets. Bing would be available in Belgium, Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.
According to Bloomberg's latest report, PrivacyWall, GMX, and Info.com are the big winners of the majority of the slots across Europe.
"Choice Screen" would mitigate Google's search engine monopoly
The new "choice screen" had been available on Android smartphones shipped in the EU since Mar. 1. It is specifically designed to mitigate Google's search engine monopoly. Previously, Bing lost its slot to DuckDuckGo in the new Android search engine ballot.
Google introduced the choice screen because of an antitrust ruling from the European Union in March, where EU regulators fined the company a record of $5 billion.
They said that Google must stop "illegally tying" its browser and search engine to its mobile OS. On the other hand, the search engines available to new Android users would vary for each EU country, with the slot decided based on a "fourth-price" auction system.
Different companies were willing to pay Google so that users would select their search engine as the default. The highest bidders are then shown to users.
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Written by: Giuliano de Leon.
