Market or Markets? Investigating Google Search's Market Shares under Vertical Segmentation

14 Pages Posted: 10 Jul 2024

See all articles by Desheng Hu

Desheng Hu

University of Zurich

Jeffrey Gleason

Northeastern Univeristy

Muhammad Abu Bakar Aziz

Northeastern Univeristy

Alice Koeninger

Northeastern Univeristy

Nikolas Guggenberger

University of Houston Law Center; Yale University - Yale Information Society Project

Ronald E. Robertson

Northeastern Univeristy

Christo Wilson

Northeastern University - College of Computer and Information Science

Date Written: May 28, 2024

Abstract

Is Google Search a monopoly with gatekeeping power? Regulators from the US, UK, and Europe have argued that it is based on the assumption that Google Search dominates the market for horizontal (a.k.a. "general") web search. Google disputes this, claiming that competition extends to all vertical (a.k.a. "specialized") search engines, and that under this market definition it does not have monopoly power. In this study we present the first analysis of Google Search's market share under vertical segmentation of online search. We leverage observational trace data collected from a panel of US residents that includes their web browsing history and copies of the Google Search Engine Result Pages they were shown. We observe that participants' search sessions begin at Google greater than 50% of the time in 24 out of 30 vertical market segments (which comprise almost all of our participants' searches). Our results inform the consequential and ongoing debates about the market power of Google Search and the conceptualization of online markets in general.

Keywords: Monopoly, Google, Market Definition, Antitrust

Suggested Citation

Hu, Desheng and Gleason, Jeffrey and Aziz, Muhammad Abu Bakar and Koeninger, Alice and Guggenberger, Nikolas and Robertson, Ronald E. and Wilson, Christo, Market or Markets? Investigating Google Search's Market Shares under Vertical Segmentation (May 28, 2024). Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media, volume 18, 2024 [10.1609/icwsm.v18i1.31340], Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4883656 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4883656

Desheng Hu

University of Zurich ( email )

Jeffrey Gleason

Northeastern Univeristy ( email )

Muhammad Abu Bakar Aziz

Northeastern Univeristy ( email )

Alice Koeninger

Northeastern Univeristy ( email )

Nikolas Guggenberger (Contact Author)

University of Houston Law Center ( email )

4170 Martin Luther King Blvd
Houston, TX 77204-6060
United States

Yale University - Yale Information Society Project ( email )

127 Wall Street
New Haven, CT 06511
United States

Ronald E. Robertson

Northeastern Univeristy ( email )

Christo Wilson

Northeastern University - College of Computer and Information Science ( email )

360 Huntington Avenue
Boston, MA 02115
United States

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