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Acourt filingin theU.S. Department of Justice ’s case against Googleover its alleged monopoly in the search market has revealed a few notable titbit about the state of the hunting market rivalry , admit the inner working , revenue , and , in some cases , exit prices of would - be Google competitors , likeDuckDuckGoandNeeva , the latter of whichsold to Snowflake last yearafter pivoting to enterprise .
Google ’s proposed “ Findings of Fact ” filing documents the account of search competition , including Google ’s own beginning , its innovation , the free-enterprise landscape painting , Google ’s hunting advertising concern , distribution agreements , and more .
Of particular interest to us were the component part that cite web search inauguration , like DuckDuckGo and Neeva , and the maturation of their business .
The filing give away some details we already knew about DuckDuckGo — for case , that it ’s been profitable since 2014 and that its source ofoperating gross is presently hunt advertising , namely search ads leave by Microsoft in the U.S. However , Google ’s proposal also attempts to paint a photo of a startup that did n’t invest in lookup innovation but instead focalize on come back investing to its shareholders .
As the filing claim , DuckDuckGo raised $ 10 million in 2018 , but the “ absolute majority of that money was allot to DuckDuckGo ’s shareholders , ” rather than being used to ameliorate its search engine . When DuckDuckGo again raised fund in 2020 — a $ 100 million round — some percentage of that was again returned to shareholders . ( The exact percent was redact . ) When shareholders sold stock to various VC firms , those funds were not used to ameliorate the hunt engine , the filing reason . But it contradicts this pointedness , too , noting that a third of DuckDuckGo ’s 50 employees in 2018 were working on improving the hunting locomotive engine , for example .
Still , the document points out that , despite DuckDuckGo ’s profitability , it had n’t built its own “ comprehensive web index ” for organic search results — scarcely a head in Google ’s favor . In addition , when Apple was ask if it would consider making DuckDuckGo a default in the Safari web internet browser , Apple ’s SVP of Services Eddy Cue responded , “ No , we did not . . . that is not a respectable choice for customers . ”Ouch !
let in also is the scope of DuckDuckGo ’s business . The filing notes the startup estimated its search engine was being used by 100 million people globally as of 2021 . The search engine receives only about 2.5 % of worldwide search queries in the U.S. , despite estimation that 10 % of people in the U.S. title to be exploiter . This , DuckDuckGo ’s leadership had explain , is due to the fact that people often use its hunt locomotive for some , but not all of their search queries .
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In Europe , DuckDuckGo receive only 0.6 % of search queries on mobile machine , as of August 2023 , even after the introduction of the Android “ choice projection screen , ” where it ’s put up as an selection . In total , its part of search queries in Europe browse from 0.5 % to 2.5 % in 2023 , depending on the land .
By represent these finding , Google hop to evidence that the great unwashed are choosing its search railway locomotive because it ’s better and more forward-looking , not because of its monopoly share .
It also send packing DuckDuckGo ’s approach to secrecy as one of its failures , claiming that the access guide to “ significant business deal - offs to look for quality , ” by not utilizing information like lookup sessions , a signed - in experience , and more . If anything , though , these details and others the filing includes show how difficult it is for a competitor to build a search concern to rival Google ’s .
Another inauguration function as an example of that problem isNeeva , the hunt railway locomotive found in 2019 by former Googlers Sridhar Ramaswamy and Vivek Raghunathan . Neeva had in the first place seemed to have promise , not onlybecause of its assumption , but also because of its founding team . chief executive officer Ramaswamy worked at Google from 2003 to 2018 and oblige senior Wiley Post where he describe to the CEO and managed Google ’s ad , commerce , search infrastructure , and privateness teams , the court document cue us .
With the team ’s deep expert know - how and experience , they devised a plan to proffer consumer an ad - costless option to Google by generating taxation via subscription instead . By 2022 , Neeva enounce it hadamassed more than 600,000 substance abuser , but most were not paying customers at that time .
The Margaret Court filing offers a few more details about Neeva ’s progression , take note financing from top VC firm like Sequoia Capital and Greylock Ventures , in addition to Ramaswamy ’s own personal investiture . The caller believed it could compete successfully on hunting tone in the U.S. and select other market with just a 2.5 % portion of general queries , Ramaswamy had take the stand during the trial .
The startup began by offer to dish up termination via Microsoft ’s Bing while it develop its own search substructure . By 2022 , it was using its own techniques for ranking WWW results and conceive itself to be comparable to Google and beneficial than Bing thanks to its role of machine learning , rude language processing , and other technique .
To develop and train its political machine eruditeness manikin , it licensed anonymous info in the form of commercially available datasets . Google could not lay claim Neeva was not innovate here . The startup launch a generative AI characteristic , Neeva AI , last year , which is similar to what Google is now testing with its Search Generative Experience ( SGE ) in that it also answers some queries directly on the hunting effect pages using AI .
As a resultant role , Neeva was able to attract some users . The filing notes that at its acme , it had “ several million unparalleled users per month , ” Ramaswamy had said . alas , its inability to compete with innocent hunting finally saw the startup shut its consumer business , pivot to go-ahead , and ultimatelyexit to Snowflake , as it was unable to attract the necessary speculation working capital support to continue to scale its business .
“ My co - laminitis , Vivek , and I issue forth to the loth termination that we would not be able to build up a business tight enough to be able to continue raising capital to plump for the increase of the product and the squad , ” Ramaswamy testify . “ So before this year , in May [ 2023 ] — we really started potential attainment conversation in March — but originally this year , in May , we shut down the consumer lookup engine , refunded the money that client had paid us , and got acquire by Snowflake , which is an enterprise datum company , ” he said .
Neeva was generate less than a million dollars in subscription revenue at the meter and was growing , but was still a minor part of the hunting market , the filing also informs us .
The inauguration expire to Snowflake for approximately $ 184.4 million in cash , more than double the amount that had been invest , the filing commonwealth . This is slightly higher than premature paper that had pegged the number at$150 million .
Though not a startup , the text file also touches on Yahoo ’s ( TechCrunch ’s parent companionship ) lose hunting business , noting it hold back crawling the web after a 2009 deal with Microsoft for algorithmic hunt and yield lookup advertising . This partnership let Yahoo decrease its search investment and focus on other more popular products , like Yahoo Finance , Yahoo Sports , Yahoo News , and Yahoo Mail . ( Much of the Yahoo surgical incision is redacted , we should note . ) It total that Mozilla once had a stack with Yahoo , too , but dropped it due to hunt calibre .
With few viable competitors on the market in the search blank , Google attempts to argue that it competes with a number of other product , like dedicated mobile apps and website that extend some specialized type of search , like Yelp , Airbnb , Amazon , Expedia , Booking.com , Hotels.com , and others . It also lay claim to compete with AI , like ChatGPT , and social media , like Facebook , Instagram , Pinterest , and TikTok — the latter three , specially among younger users .
For exercise , Google vice Chief Executive of hunting Liz Reid say in 2021 that “ 63 % of daily TikTok substance abuser age 18 to 24 stated that they use[d ] TikTok as a search railway locomotive in the last week . ”
Whether or not the court will be swayed by Google ’s argument that it ’s not a monopoly in search and more broadly in search advertising , which is a large part of this case , persist to be watch . Google is reset the victor in the search grocery , but it ’s not for lack of rival trying to develop in , as these examples show . However , the trial had already bring out that Google used its important resources to exert its posture in the search grocery store — for example , by paying Apple$18 billion to be the default hunt on iPhones . Meanwhile , Appleweighed buying Bing from Microsoft in 2020and had alsoconsidered stimulate DuckDuckGo the default engine in Safari , before rejecting the idea to continue cash Google ’s checks rather .
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