‘They’re locking you into behavioral advertising:’ DuckDuckGo CEO on Google antitrust suit

Yahoo Finance’s Akiko Fujita and Alexis Keenan and Gabriel Weinberg, DuckDuckGo CEO, discuss privacy concerns amid Google’s antitrust suit.

Video Transcript

AKIKO FUJITA: Rival search engines of Google are speaking out in the wake of the Department of Justice's lawsuit against the tech giant. The lawsuit alleges Google locked out its competitors by signing multimillion dollar distribution deals with carriers and device makers like Apple.

DuckDuckGo has emerged as an alternative to many users who are wary of Google's practices, especially on data collection. The search engine doesn't track you, store personal information, or use cookies when you perform a web search. Let's bring in the CEO of DuckDuckGo. Gabriel Weinberg joins us today, and Alexis Keenan and joining in on the conversation as well. She's been tracking this very closely.

Gabriel, it's good to have you on today. Let me first just get your thoughts on this DOJ case and your involvement. Were you interviewed as part of the DOJ investigation?

GABRIEL WEINBERG: Yeah, we were part of it, explaining our kind of perspective. You know, we're a privacy company, as you mentioned. So our goal is really just to give simple privacy protection to people. We operate a search engine, obviously, but other tools, too. And so all we're really looking for is for people to really have an easy ability to choose us, should they want to. That's really it.

AKIKO FUJITA: And how strong do you think [INAUDIBLE]

ALEXIS KEENAN: Hey Gabriel, Alexis [INAUDIBLE]

GABRIEL WEINBERG: I think the case is pretty strong. I mean, it's direct and straightforward. It's about Google's core kind of search monopoly on mobile in particular, where they hold about 95% share, especially on Android and Chrome, which are other monopolies that they hold, and using that to prop up their search monopoly.

That's the real problem that we have is that, say, on Android, Google likes to say search competition is, like, one click away. But by our count, it's 15 to 20 clicks. And it's actually very difficult for a consumer to set DuckDuckGo as a search engine on Android across a device. And so what we're hoping that the government does, ultimately, is make that very easily. Make it actually one click away.

ALEXIS KEENAN: Gabriel, it's Alexis here. Now DuckDuckGo is mentioned in the government's complaint a handful of times, including a lot of reference to its market share in the general search market. Now, it says-- the government says that DuckDuckGo's share is less than 2%. We have a graphic we want to show.

I know you say that the data can be a little bit sketchy, but this shows that DuckDuckGo's share is estimated around 0.43% of that general search market. And then you have Google there with 72%, Bing at about 12%, and Yahoo, our parent company, or Verizon, our parent company, along with Yahoo, at 1.8%.

So the government says that the problem really is Google and for DuckDuckGo, as well as other competitors, increasing that market share. To do so, they can't because of these exclusive default placements, though Apple does offer four choices per search. You have Google, Yahoo, Bing, and DuckDuckGo. So what happens when DuckDuckGo says to Apple, well, we want to be a default search engine on their Safari browsers? Have you had that conversation? Is that a possibility?

GABRIEL WEINBERG: Yeah, so just kind of paint a picture of the market here, yeah, as you mentioned, market share numbers are difficult, especially for a privacy company, because people don't want to be tracked to use DuckDuckGo, so it's hard to figure out people who opt into those kind of panels.

But from our estimates, we're a bit over 2% of the market in the US. And to answer your question, what we're kind of advocating for is when you set up the device, really, any device or browser, you're given the choice of which search engine to use. And so if you would like to use a private option, you can easily do so.

And when we run a study where we actually give real people that choice on mobile, we find that 20%-- 25% of people are selecting an alternative. And so it means Google's market share drops from 95% to 75%. And so that difference right now of 95% to 75% is a direct quantification of the anti-competitive practices going on here. If there was an easy way, the market would be much more competitive.

ALEXIS KEENAN: So then what is the remedy? If you were at the reins to say this is what needs to be done, this is how Google should be changed so it doesn't have that control to these search access points, what do you think the solution is here?

GABRIEL WEINBERG: That's a great question because a lot of these cases, historically, have gone on for a decade. And so what we'd like to see is something that's simple and effective that can happen now. And we really think that it's this search preference menu. So when you start Chrome or Android, you'd be presented with an option to select a private option like DuckDuckGo if you want, or any other option.

And so what that really does is it really answers the public now, who wants action against big technology companies, and then enables the consumer to really bust Google's monopoly themselves. Because they get to choose. We're not asking to be the default. We're just asking to actually be one click away so the consumer can choose.

AKIKO FUJITA: Gabriel, let me ask you the central question that really has to do with antitrust law, which is anti-competitive behavior ultimately hurting the consumer. I mean, what's the harm to consumers? You've heard the Google argument. There are options out there. Our product is just a better one. How do you define the harm to consumers right now?

GABRIEL WEINBERG: Yeah, so pushing back on that one, like I said before, like, if it really was easy to choose DuckDuckGo, we think that, you know, 10 times more people would be using us. And so if Google really believes that they would be selective in all cases, they should make it easy.

But in terms of the harm, the real harm is to think of Google as an advertising company. And they make behavioral advertising across the entire internet. That's created all these societal harms that we're talking about now, including polarization, issues with our democracy, to just creepy ads following you around.

And by locking you in to use in their search product, they're locking you into that behavioral advertising. And so it really is a privacy harm of data collection at its core. And so that's why we think consumers should be able to opt out with one click. And in this case, choose DuckDuckGo, but really, any other option. We just offer a private option.