Google Shutting Out Rivals, Claims Russian Search Engine Yandex

suraj.sun writes "Ilya Segalovich, co-founder of Russia's leading search engine, Yandex, has accused Google of abusing its dominance to shut out competitors in cyberspace. Responding to comments made to the Guardian by Sergey Brin, the Google co-founder, about threats to the open internet, Ilya Segalovich described the U.S. search giant's popular smartphone platform, Android, as a 'strange combination of openness and not openness,' and its Chrome web browser as anti-competitive. Segalovich said that Brin should explain Google's 'semi-open' approach to search competitors before accusing others of endangering the unfettered internet, and suggested Google was guilty of foul play with its Chrome browser, which picks the company's own search engine as default for users, rather than offering a choice between rivals including Yahoo, Bing and Yandex."

Comments

Chrome doesn't offer a choice? News to me

[Todd Knarr]

That's odd. On my machine I can open Chrome, go to Settings|Basics|Search and select from several search engines including Bing and Chrome will honor my selection. If the one you like isn't listed, you can add it yourself. Sure it starts out set to Google by default, it kind of has to be set to something, but that's hardly "shutting out the competition".

Re:Chrome doesn't offer a choice? News to me

[icebike]

Because your machine does not come with Google Chrome. You had to go fetch it.
And when you install it for the first time it ASKS you which search engine you want.

From then on it shows what ever you selected, and the list of choices is wider than any other browser.

Re:Chrome doesn't offer a choice? News to me

[Baloroth]

I think it might not in Russia (some AC below posted a link to a bug report that said they disabled the first-run search selector screen for Russian builds). However, it should be noted this is not a monopolistic practice. Yandex has 62% share in Russia, while Google only has a 25% share, so they can't really be "shutting out" Yandex: Yandex is by far the biggest player already. You can argue about what Google should do, but not offering a selection screen is hardly illegal, because Google isn't even close to the majority player.

Also, Segalovich claims that "If you download an application [on Android] it does not work if it's not Android marketplace." Which is wrong, at face value (I've sideloaded apps all the time), so either a) this is just FUD or b) he isn't conveying his point very well (actually, b is certain, I read what he is claiming and I still don't know what he is trying to say).

Re:Chrome doesn't offer a choice? News to me

[Z34107]

When I installed Chrome it did not pop up a window and offer me a choice of which search engine to use.

You're either lying or blind, Mr. AC. I installed Chrome just now, and I was greeted with a search engine pop-up. If you miss that, you'll see it every time you right click on the URL bar.

Re:Chrome doesn't offer a choice? News to me

[JackieBrown]

Android did not use to come with Chrome. In fact, it is not even available unless you are using Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich. Even then, you need to install it.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.android.chrome&hl=en

Re:Google Chrome asks you to choose a search engin

[Anonymous Coward]

That's because Google have restricted the ability to select your search engine in Chrome specifically if you have a Russian locale.

Re:Chrome DOES offer a choce

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. But not in Russia, which is what this story is about. Source: http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=81578

Re:On a Mac, Chrome lets you choose a search provi

[shutdown -p now]

It does that on all platforms on first run. But there was a time when it did not do that if you had LANG="ru".