Are we ready for an internet with no Google search?

“Google it.”

For the past two decades, Google has literally become the dictionary definition for web search.

Forget relative also-rans like Bing, DuckDuckGo, and ancient competitors like AltaVista and Ask Jeeves (who, by the way, seems way ahead of his time now that ChatGPT has come along).

What Google Search looked like at launch, in 1998.

Google has grown into a $3 trillion behemoth that touches basically every aspect of our digital lives. And it amassed its size and power through being damn good at one single thing: search.

In the late 1990s – when I was using the internet for the first time as a nine-year-old – Google’s minimalist interface was revelatory. In an era in which every web page bombarded users with information, ads and links, Google’s search page was white and clean. And it was lightning fast, too.

I remember Googling what praying mantises are and how bubble wrap works.

What was more revelatory than Google’s interface was what was happening under the hood. Google’s search engine algorithm, dubbed PageRank, debuted in 1998 and quickly became its killer feature.

Early rivals such as Yahoo and AltaVista ranked results based on how many times a search term appeared on a page, while Google’s PageRank ranked websites by their relevance, based on the quality and quantity of links pointing to them. It’s this “black box” that has made Google so effective.

Google’s users got better, more relevant search results. Simply put, if you Googled something, you found what you were looking for.

It meant that for virtually my entire online life, Google has been my home page, and Googling things is a force of habit – something I, now in my mid-30s, do dozens of times every day, as is the case for most Australians.

Google search is deeply embedded in our digital lives, and the statistics reflect this: 90 per cent of web searches in Australia are through Google, a number that climbs to 98 per cent on mobile devices, according to Australia’s competition watchdog.

It’s that dominance that has thrust Google into the sights of Australian regulators – and more pressingly for Google, the US Department of Justice, which has a break-up of the company as perhaps the most extreme, though far from the least likely, tool at its disposal.

Google didn’t grow into a dominant force entirely organically. At the heart of the Justice Department’s case is that Google paid billions of dollars to other tech companies, like Apple and Samsung, to be the default engine on their smartphones. It’s those actions that violate antitrust laws, the department says.

The ACCC also found earlier this year in an investigation that Google had paid telcos including Telstra, TPG and Optus to be the default search engine on Android devices.

Breaking up Google would be hard. It’s a daunting task for the Justice Department and one that may end up before the Supreme Court. There’s scant precedent for such a move: a federal judge ordered Microsoft be broken up two decades ago, but the company fended off that outcome with a successful appeal.

But let’s say it happens, and the DOJ forces a break-up and bans Google from being the default search engine on devices.

Are we ready for a world where Googling something is no longer the default option? And are we ready for how the internet will look without Google as we know it today?

The internet is already edging towards something that resembles a post-search era.

Google has vanquished its rivals by being better (and by making billions in payments).Credit: Getty

The rise of AI chatbot interfaces such as ChatGPT is scrambling the search market and making it increasingly likely that the next Google will be an AI start-up or a new company entirely.

Many of these companies are small, nimble and able to invent and commercialise their innovations far faster than Google can. And Google seems to agree.

“The DOJ’s [Department of Justice] outline comes at a time when competition in how people find information is blooming, with all sorts of new entrants emerging and new technologies like AI transforming the industry,” it said in a statement.

Any move to upend Google’s search dominance would also take years to implement from a legal perspective, and would probably be out of date before it was completed.

And in an era now dominated by TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat and other social media platforms, Google search also feels less directly relevant for young people than it used to.

Nine-year-old me now would definitely be interested in TikTok, Snapchat and, sure, YouTube, which is owned by Google. I’m less convinced nine-year-old me now would rely on Google search in the same way I did to connect with the online world 25 years ago.

The white minimalist search engine was something of a panacea in the late ’90s. Now, vertical videos, AI-generated images and augmented reality are where it’s at.

I also find the fact Google felt it needed to make those billions of dollars in payments – both to other tech companies and Australian telcos such as Telstra and Optus – utterly bizarre. Google was, for decades, the best search engine. It was winning, and it surely didn’t need to further assert its dominance by paying for the privilege. If offered the choice, most consumers would probably choose Google over its smaller rivals, without any coercion.

Whatever the case, I – and I think much of the internet-using public – feel ready for whatever a post-Google internet looks like. Tools like ChatGPT are flawed but feel magical in a way that makes Google search feel like something from a bygone era.

Ask an AI chatbot a question now, and you’ll probably get a better, more thoughtful answer than whatever Google spits out. There are plenty of issues to be ironed out – data scraping, hallucinations, competition – but there’s no putting the generative AI genie back in the bottle.

So bring on whatever’s next, whether that be because of an order from the Department of Justice or otherwise.

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