28 Apr Why The EU Hates Google: Its End Game Is Still A Single Search Result
Google’s entire multi-billion dollar software utopia is designed to find the perfect search result. Back in 2005, before U.S. and EU government regulators painted Google as a monopoly, now-Chairman Eric Schmidt was quite open about the search giant’s end game. He said that Google should ultimately only give one search result for each inquiry—the right one for you at that moment.
“When you use Google, do you get more than one answer? Of course you do,” he told public television host Charlie Rose at the time. Schmidt continued:
Well, that’s a bug. We should be able to give you the right answer just once. We should know what you meant. You should look for information. We should get it exactly right.
This complicates the EU’s current antitrust case against Google. Among other objections, European regulators charge that when Google prioritizes its own services and partners in search results, it’s snuffing out the competition.