As Google huffs and puffs, its search ad monopoly slips
Google has rejected the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill. Photo / Getty Images
Online exclusive
If Google’s past relationships with media outlets had some thinking it could be persuaded to entertain the government’s proposed media bargaining regime, they should think again.
As widely reported, Google has rejected the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill, which would require it to negotiate commercial agreements with media outlets to allow it to continue running snippets of news outlets’ content in its search results.
Google has paid outlets in the past on a voluntary basis but sees the move to regulate such payments as a “link tax”. It is threatening to pull the plug on featuring news articles in Google search results if it proceeds.
“We’d be forced to stop linking to news content on Google Search, Google News, or Discover surfaces in New Zealand and discontinue our current commercial agreements and ecosystem support with New Zealand news publishers,” Google’s New Zealand country director Caroline Rainsford said.
We expected Meta to take this approach, as it has done in Australia and Canada, but another factor explains Google’s hardline attitude here: Its search monopoly is slipping anyway and might be about to disappear altogether.
The Amazon effect
While Google still has about 90% of the global search engine market - Bing is the only other real competitor of note - it’s a different story when you look at search-related advertising - the ads sold around search results across the web in general.
The Wall Street Journal this week reported data from research firm eMarketer, which suggests that Google’s share of the US search advertising market will drop below 50% next year.
Amazon.com is making big inroads against Google, expected to claim 22.3% of the search-related ad market this year, up 17.6% from last year. Google has a 50.5% share, representing 7.6% growth. Amazon’s e-commerce website is a digital juggernaut in the US because a staggering 180 million shoppers are estimated to use the Amazon Prime service, which includes free shipping for a monthly subscription fee.