Google is selling the default search position

I'm not quite sure what that means.

Does that mean when setting-up a new phone one will be given the alternative to select whichever search engine the user wants?

Or does it simply mean that Google will out-bid allcomers and automatically be selected as the default?

Another thought, how many of Joe Public know of any other SE other than G?

Slightly puzzled, am I missing something here?

I guess you've not heard about this. I liked to the original stories for reference.

Do you remember the Browser Choice forced on Microsoft when installing Windows? It's a similar thing with users getting a new Android phone in Europe. At the point of installation a user can choose to use any of the three search providers as a default search. The difference with this is that Google has made others pay to be listed. The EU doesn't believe it's the solution it had in mind.

I had a quick look at your link and that was why I said I was slightly puzzled.

So how much are DDG etc expected to pay for the "priviledge" of being an alternative?

Will they only pay IF they are selected as the default or pay for the potential of being selected even if they are not?

So ... Google is selling "our" information through its scraping?

@redBar that is a good question. But there is even more.

The alternatives are all "meta" search engines in that they use Google's and/or Bing's results. (I believe that DDG doesn't use Google but it really isn't clear). So essentially Google will be getting paid twice, once for rights to be the default and then again when searches are made.

The EU doesn't believe it's the solution it had in mind.

No kidding. You are free to choose, as long as you choose Google.

Why is Bing only appearing for the UK?

[edit] Sorry, Yandex does appear in a few places, but those place are few and far between.

DDG

They use Bing and Yandex

Supposedly:

DuckDuckGo's results are a compilation of "over 400" sources, including Yahoo! Search BOSS, Wolfram Alpha, Bing, Yandex, its own Web crawler (the DuckDuckBot) and others.

Apparently wrt DDG, they use Bing, and Yandex in some countries. In the past they had some kind of open source instant answers setup where volunteers added data, it's now closed source. They also obviously use wikipedia for their knowledge graph which in itself has many hundreds of sources, but most definitely for their organic results it's Bing and Yandex.

Bing stands to do quite well from this considering the number of metas that are using their ads as well as their organic.

Slightly puzzled, am I missing something here?

Bureaucrats made a noise. G did a double fake. It's the dollar, baby, always the dollar! Thus compliance with the bureaucrats puts filthy lucre in g's pockets.

Simple!

Beauty is that g's competitors have to pay g to be listed as a result of the "auction" process!

Priceless!