Wi-Fi 6 speed test: These are the fastest routers we've ever seen - CNET

The age of Wi-Fi 6 is just beginning. So how much faster will those transmissions be?

We're at the very beginning of the Wi-Fi 6 era, and new, next-gen routers capable of putting 802.11ax's upgraded features to work are already up for sale. It's early, though. Despite the fact that Wi-Fi 6 routers are backward-compatible with previous-gen Wi-Fi devices, they won't be able to do much of anything to speed them up. For that, you'll need new devices that support Wi-Fi 6, too -- and hardly any are currently available.

That also means that it'll be a while before we're really able to test out Wi-Fi 6's claims of being much, much better at connecting with lots and lots of devices at once. Ultimately, that might mean faster Wi-Fi at places like airports and stadiums, but we're probably a few years away from feeling the full impact.

Still, that hasn't stopped us from wondering just how fast Wi-Fi 6 top speeds will ultimately be once new hardware gets here. Early estimates describe those top Wi-Fi 6 transfer speeds as 30% faster than the top Wi-Fi 5 transfer speeds. Sure enough, a quick look at the specs on a new Wi-Fi 6 router like the Netgear Nighthawk AX12 pegs the top speed on the 2.4GHz band at 1.2 gigabits per second, which is right around 30% faster than the fastest Wi-Fi 5 speeds we've tested here at CNET.

The Killer 1650x Wi-Fi 6 module works with select PCs, and is available now on Amazon for $35.

Rivet Networks

And, while it's true that there aren't many Wi-Fi 6 client devices available yet, that doesn't mean that there aren't any. In fact, if you've got the right kind of computer, you can get a Wi-Fi 6 adapter on Amazon right now for $35.

We picked one of those up for ourselves, along with that Netgear Nighthawk AX12 Wi-Fi 6 router. With the two of them, we were able to do some early Wi-Fi 6 speed tests. Here's how that went.

Our test setup

The Netgear Nighthawk AX12 promises speeds of up to 1.2 Gbps on the 2.4GHz band and up to 4.8 Gbps on the 5GHz band. There are a lot of limitations on that at the moment -- one of them being that our internet speeds at the office aren't nearly that fast.

We can still test the router's top transfer speeds by measuring its ability to move files around locally, though. The router comes with a set of two 1-gigabit Ethernet ports in the back that you can aggregate into a single connection from two incoming servers. We connected those ports to a pair of MacBooks that acted as our servers for the test. They'd transmit data to the router over those Ethernet connections for an aggregated upload speed of 2 Gbps. From there, a third computer equipped with that Killer Wi-Fi 6 module would connect to the router to download the data wirelessly. 

In other words, we'd be able to measure top download speeds of up to 2 Gbps using speed-testing JPERF software.

The result: a top speed that clocked in at 1,320 Mbps, or 1.32 Gbps. The support team for that Killer module at Rivet Networks told us that the numbers we were seeing sounded about right, and that in a different environment, perhaps one with less interference, we might see speeds as high as 1.4 or 1.5 Gbps. We'll keep testing, but for now, 1.32 Gbps is the best result we've seen.

But hey, that's a lot of numbers, and numbers are easier to process when you put them into perspective. To do so, I'mma call in the big guns.

Avengers, assemble!

Setting aside Spider-Man: Far From Home, which isn't available as a digital download yet, the Marvel Cinematic Universe consists of a whopping 22 films adapted from Marvel comic books, stretching from Iron Man to Guardians of the Galaxy to Black Panther all the way up to Avengers: Endgame. It'd take more than 48 hours of screen time to watch them all -- just ask CNET's Abrar Al-Heeti, who actually pulled it off in a single 59-hour marathon.

Now, let's say you wanted to follow in Abrar's footsteps and host a Marvel marathon of your own. You don't want to rent, you don't want to stream, and you don't want to wrangle a bunch of discs -- you want your own, high-quality digital copies of each film, and you'll need to download them. 

Ry Crist/CNET

Assuming you were downloading them in 4K resolution using the same compression standards as Blu-Ray, each film would eat up about 70 gigbytes of storage space. The grand total for 48 hours and 11 minutes of footage? 1,580 gigabytes -- more than a terabyte and a half.

So. How long would it take you to download all of those files?

Well, according to the global speed index at Ookla, a top speed-testing site, the average download speed in the US is now 119 megabits per second. Bits aren't the same as bytes, mind you, but the conversion is easy: You just divide the bits by 8. So, with that average, 119-megabits-per-second connection, you'd be able to download about 15 megabytes per second -- or .015 gigabytes per second. Dividing our grand total of 1,580 gigabytes by .015 tells us that downloading the entire MCU with an average connection speed would take 105,333 seconds. 

That's roughly 29 hours and 16 minutes. And you don't even have a time stone to speed things up.

In my home, I'm lucky enough to have a direct fiber connection. My plan is set at 300 Mbps, which is easily fast enough for my purposes, but entry-level as far as fiber goes. If that speed held steady, I'd be able to download the entire MCU in about 11 hours, 42 minutes. 

What if I upgraded to the best possible fiber connection, complete with the top-of-the-line hardware needed to take advantage of it? The fastest Wi-Fi 5 router we've tested is the Asus RT-AC86U, which clocked in with an impressive transfer speed of 938 Mbps on the 5GHz band. With that router and a fiber connection that was fast enough to match it, I could download all 22 MCU films in about 3 hours and 45 minutes.

This brings us to Wi-Fi 6. Like I said before, we clocked the Netgear Nighthawk AX12 at a top transfer speed of 1,320 Mbps. Assuming we had an internet connection of at least that speed, we'd be able to download all 22 films in just 2 hours and 40 minutes. At that speed, you could download the entire MCU almost 11 times before someone at the average US speed was able to download it once.

Hold your horses

Again, the big, obvious problem with all of that is that most people don't have access to faster-than-average internet speeds. A direct fiber connection only became available in my neighborhood very recently -- before that, I was living with cable internet download speeds of about 62 Mbps, which is well below the national average.

A Wi-Fi 6 router wouldn't do much of anything to speed up a connection like that, or even the speedier fiber connection I'm enjoying now. And without Wi-Fi 6-compatible laptops and devices, I wouldn't be able to enjoy the faster local transfers within my home's network, either. For almost all of us, it's way too early to upgrade to a new Wi-Fi 6 router.

For almost all of us, it's way too early to upgrade to a Wi-Fi 6 router.

It's a bit like a bucket brigade. A Wi-Fi 6 router is like someone who's really, really good at passing buckets of water back and forth -- say, 100 buckets a minute. But that only matters if the guy next to him is also capable of handling 100 buckets per minute. If that person can only hand off 20 buckets per minute, then 20 buckets per minute is all you can expect from the entire brigade.

The TP-Link Archer AX11000 promises wireless top speeds of nearly 11 gigabits per second -- but it'll likely be years before you're able to hit speeds like that.

TP-Link

In other words, your internet connection is only as fast as its slowest link. And for most of us, our ISP's top download speed is going to be the slowest link.

The silver lining to that is that is that we can expect some pretty dramatic jumps in internet speeds in the coming years. Experts pegged Wi-Fi 6 as 30% faster than Wi-Fi 5, and our early tests seem to indicate that it's an accurate claim. But that's compared to the fastest possible Wi-Fi 5 connections. The speed jumps are much, much more significant when you compare them to the average internet speeds that most of us are currently stuck with. Not 30% faster, but 1,000% faster. 

And that's just based off of our first speed test -- other routers might produce even faster results in the months ahead. One option from TP-Link even promises theoretical maximum speeds of 10,756 Mbps -- nearly 11 gigabits per second.

Of course, jumps like that are going to require more than just a new router -- they're going to require fiber internet speeds that are faster than a single gigabit per second. Connections like that aren't widely available yet, but when they get here, it appears that the hardware will be ready to take advantage of them. That's thanks to Wi-Fi 6.

In the meantime, we'll continue testing out the newest routers to see if we can find any that are even faster than the Netgear model we used here. You can also expect to see fresh tests and reviews for the current-gen routers and mesh systems that can tide you over until Wi-Fi 6 becomes a more meaningful upgrade. Do stay tuned.

Originally published Aug. 2 and updated regularly.

CNET Smart Home

Let's block ads! (Why?)

https://www.cnet.com/news/wi-fi-6-speed-test-fastest-routers-weve-ever-seen/

2019-08-03 11:00:00Z
CBMiTGh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmNuZXQuY29tL25ld3Mvd2ktZmktNi1zcGVlZC10ZXN0LWZhc3Rlc3Qtcm91dGVycy13ZXZlLWV2ZXItc2Vlbi_SAVdodHRwczovL3d3dy5jbmV0LmNvbS9nb29nbGUtYW1wL25ld3Mvd2ktZmktNi1zcGVlZC10ZXN0LWZhc3Rlc3Qtcm91dGVycy13ZXZlLWV2ZXItc2Vlbi8

Amazon's new opt-out keeps people from 'reviewing' your Alexa recordings - Engadget

Sponsored Links

An Amazon Echo Spot smart speaker photographed on a kitchen counter, taken on January 9, 2019. Future Publishing via Getty Images

Over the last few days Google and Apple have begun to address their use of real people that listen in on recordings to help improve voice AI like Assistant and Siri. For Amazon, these revelations surfaced months ago, and now it's added a toggle that people can use to opt out of potentially having their voice recordings and/or recorded message transcripts "manually reviewed" by people.

While Amazon has said that only a small sample of recordings are manually reviewed, people may not want to have someone listening in on what they were saying just because their speaker or remote thought it heard the wake word.

Bloomberg reported first on the new setting, which users can find on the Amazon website or in Alexa apps under the Alexa Privacy section. A new Privacy Hub for Alexa arrived in May, at the same time Amazon added the option to delete your voice history with a voice command. A spokesperson told the outlet that "We'll also be updating information we provide to customers to make our practices more clear."

Let's block ads! (Why?)

https://www.engadget.com/2019/08/03/amazon-alexa-review-opt-out-privacy/

2019-08-03 07:58:47Z
52780344161674

Galaxy Note 10: Samsung has one more chance to impress me this year - CNET

What the Note 10 Plus will reportedly look like.

WinFuture

The Galaxy Note 10 has its work cut out for it. Samsung phones have had a rough year. There have been a lot of them, but most have failed to make a meaningful splash (here's proof that Galaxy S10 phones aren't selling) and the one phone that did is now delayed. That leaves the Note 10 (and rumored Note 10 Plus) as Samsung's last shot to blow us all away before rival brands ratchet up the competition. 

Don't get me wrong -- the Galaxy S10 Plus and Galaxy S10 are great phones, but two things held them back from getting our Editors' Choice award. The in-screen fingerprint reader has significant accuracy problems, which makes it annoying to use over the hundreds of times you unlock a phone in a week. And the camera tech falls behind Google and Huawei (more on both below.) Meanwhile, the Galaxy S10 5G is far too expensive at $1,300, 5G coverage is extremely limited and the chipset inside is already outdated. The Galaxy Fold's screen meltdown is a major black eye to Samsung, and a source of deep embarrassment.

But Samsung has another chance to attract buyers. Samsung often holds back its very best components and software rollout for the Note release. This model is typically the largest and most advanced of the year's Galaxy phones. Positioned as a device for power users, the Galaxy Note is also a bid against Apple's forthcoming iPhones as we head into the hypercompetitive holiday crush.

But impressing me -- and more importantly, prospective buyers -- is about more than battery size and storage capacity. I already know that the Galaxy Note 10 is going to have all the top-tier specs, from mega-battery to massive storage. To me, the Galaxy Note's real success will be defined by the details. Can Samsung catch up with competitors like Huawei and Google on camera prowess? Are there those elusive, but all-important intangibles that make a phone a pleasure to use every day?

Now playing: Watch this: So many more Samsung Galaxy Note 10 details leak

4:36

When you're playing at the very top level as Samsung does, small differences, for example, between an incredible low light photo and a merely good one, could change a buyer's mind. 

Here's what the Note 10 needs to have to be great.

Update the look, already

The Galaxy phone design is getting stale. Samsung likes to move around the camera placement to help differentiate each year's models, but the same curved sides we see on nearly every Galaxy phone, and that ultrareflective glossy backing, feel tired.

A refresh is long past due. For example, Huawei, Oppo, Vivo and OnePlus (the last three brands are connected by the same umbrella organization, BBK Electronics) have all trotted out exceptionally eye-catching designs with unctuous gradients and 3D chevron patterns. At long last, leaked images show that Samsung could embrace a similar look. The Galaxy Note 10 is also rumored to come in pink.

The screen needs to be as easy to use with a finger as it is with the stylus

I also hope that Samsung thinks about the curvature of the Note 10's screen. The dual curved edges are now standard on the higher-end Galaxy phones, and while I love the way they help immerse me in the world on the screen, the design also introduces a couple of problems. 

As bezels shrink and screens become truly edge-to-edge, the usable screen stretches all the way to the curve. I've had problems with phones like the Galaxy S10 Plus registering my finger when I tap the edge to place the cursor.

I also frequently use Samsung's edge panel software, a menu of shortcuts you can access from any screen. On curve-screen phones, that tab rests right on the screen bend, which makes it tricky to access with a swipe. 

While the precision of the Note's S Pen stylus might help, I find that I use my fingers at least half the time -- hopefully Samsung has found a happy medium between the radius of the screen curve and how far the active display extends.

This area can be hard to swipe to with your finger.

Angela Lang/CNET

Give us an in-screen fingerprint reader that works every time

I was pumped to try out the Galaxy S10 Plus' in-screen fingerprint reader. So futuristic. So convenient to unlock the phone when it's lying on a desk, without having to pick it up to get to the rear-mounted sensor. My enthusiasm didn't last long.

The Galaxy S10 Plus' in-screen fingerprint reader  just doesn't work well. Even after enrolling my primary thumb twice to increase my odds of unlocking the phone on the first try, it routinely takes two, three, or even four attempts to actually unlock the Galaxy S10 Plus. I often wind up just typing in my 6-digit code in exasperation.

Multiple software updates from Samsung haven't helped, and the recommendation to delete all the prints and re-enroll them (for the third time) isn't a satisfying or practical solution.

I want to love in-screen fingerprint readers so much.

Angela Lang/CNET

Better yet, give us face unlock

Google has already announced that the Pixel 4 will have secure face unlock like the iPhone X family of phones. That's to say, it'll use a dot projector to map your face. This has been a long time coming, but Samsung could have potentially gotten there first.

The Galaxy S10 lineup dropped the iris scanner that would have been secure enough for mobile payments. Samsung introduced that feature with the Galaxy Note 7, but pulling it in 2019 will mean its phones will fall behind the Pixel 4 when that phone launches -- Pixels usually arrive in October.  

Camera, camera, camera

When photos are the currency of your day, your phone had better have an industry-first camera. The Galaxy S10 Plus takes great shots. I get compliments all the time, even for images that don't apply filters. But good as they are, Samsung is no longer at the top of the game for photos or video.

Huawei's P30 Pro and Google's Pixel 3 take far better low light shots, using standalone modes that take a little longer, but bring out tremendous clarity and brightness, without blowing out the shot. 

Huawei's P30 Pro takes exceptional low light pictures and photos with its optical zoom lens.

Angela Lang/CNET

And while the Galaxy S10 Plus has three lenses that make it easy to zoom in close or take a wide-angle photo, the P30 Pro and Oppo Reno with 10x zoom both get much closer from further away, with impressively crisp details. Samsung is rumored to be working on a 5x optical zoom of its own, but it's unlikely we'll see it in the Note 10.

The current rumors point to a main camera, telephoto lens and ultrawide angle lens on the Note 10 (just like the Galaxy S10 Plus), with a time-of-flight sensor (ToF) for the even-larger Note Plus. The ToF sensor could assist with portrait video as on the Galaxy S10 5G.

Most important to me is to see the quality of low-light shots improve, whether through a standalone app or in the phone's native camera itself. 

The Note 9's stylus got Bluetooth capability. What will the Note 10 bring?

Sarah Tew/CNET

Make the stylus relevant again

I like the S Pen stylus, the digital pen that gives the Note line its name. I mostly enjoy using it to take notes (it gives the typing fingers a break) and to navigate the phone's interface without smearing it up with finger grease. 

This year however, it'd be nice for Samsung to figure out a use case that people really care about. The S Pen is great for writing, taking precise screen shots and doodling, but I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that most people aren't drawing detailed images with precise shading. 

The Note 9 added Bluetooth capability, which lets you use the S Pen to take photos from afar, as a remote camera trigger. That's nice, but not entirely necessary. The current rumors suggest that the S Pen will gain more features that will allow you to use it for gesture navigation, a bit like the Pixel 4 features that Google just announced.

We've been burned by gesture navigation before. Years ago, Samsung even used a version that let you advance photos and songs by passing your hand across the screen. I wasn't a fan then, but times have changed, and perhaps this future -- if it emerges -- has too.

Samsung declined to comment.

We'll be live on the ground in New York covering the Galaxy Note launch. Stick with us for live impressions of the Galaxy Note 10.

$779

CNET may get a commission from retail offers.

Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus

Let's block ads! (Why?)

https://www.cnet.com/news/galaxy-note-10-samsung-has-one-more-chance-to-impress-me-this-year/

2019-08-03 09:30:01Z
52780343982522

E3 organization leaks data for over 2,000 journalists and analysts - VentureBeat

If you attended the Electronic Entertainment Expo trade show this year with a media badge, it’s possible that some of your sensitive data is now public. Each year, the Entertainment Software Association hands out hundreds of “press badges” to certain members of the press. To get one of these badges, I have given the organization my name, phone number, home address, and more each year for the last half-decade. That info goes onto a spreadsheet that the ESA hands out to its member companies. This makes it easier for those companies to invite press to E3 events and meetings.

Up until yesterday, however, that list was accessible anyone who clicked on a button on the ESA website, as first spotted by YouTube creator Sophia Narwitz. Since then, The ESA has removed the spreadsheet from its site. But it did not do that before other people were able to download it. At this point, it’s impossible to tell who has the list.

This failure to adequately secure sensitive data doesn’t just expose games journalists. I’ve confirmed with someone who has access to the list (with the ESA’s permission) that it contains info for YouTube creators, Wall Street financial analysts at firms like Wedbush and Goldman Sachs, and Tencent employees.

The ESA’s reaction to the E3 data leak

This puts the ESA in a tough spot. I reached out to the organization, and it provided the following statement from a spokesperson:

“ESA was made aware of a website vulnerability that led to the contact list of registered journalists attending E3 being made public. Once notified, we immediately took steps to protect that data and shut down the site, which is no longer available. We regret this this occurrence and have put measures in place to ensure it will not occur again.”

While this breach could expose people to certain threats, it could also hurt the ESA’s bottom line. Companies pay the organization a lot of money to show up to E3. And part of the reason the trade show is worth that price is because the group has a spreadsheet with the contact info for popular YouTubers and influential media personalities. If people are more hesitant to share that data at E3 2020, suddenly the show is potentially less valuable to attending developers and other companies.

The ESA website was likely also accessible from Europe, and it contained info for European members of the press. That could turn this into a GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) issue. That is the EU regulatory framework that obliges any company that collects data to meet certain assurances of security.

The maximum fine for a GDPR violation is 20 million euros.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

https://venturebeat.com/2019/08/02/e3-data-leak/

2019-08-03 06:52:00Z
52780344718603

Voice assistant companies abandon snooping practices after being found out - RT

Amazon has become the latest of the trio of tech giants to curb their secretive harvesting and processing of voice recordings via virtual assistants. The practice was rife with Google and Apple, as well.

Amazon announced on Friday that it would allow users of its smartphone assistance app Alexa to deny the company access to their private conversations. “We take customer privacy seriously and continuously review our practices and procedures,” the Amazon spokesperson told Bloomberg.

Also on rt.com Constant surveillance: How big tech’s household devices are SPYING on you

She said that Amazon would also be updating the app’s settings for it to include a disclaimer informing the customers that Amazon might subject their recordings to manual review if they don't opt out.

That practice reportedly saw Amazon employees listening to and transcribing some of the recordings, with the stated goal of improving the virtual assistant’s services. Amazon was not alone in spying on its customers while keeping them in the dark. Google and Apple were doing the same using Google Assistant and Siri, respectively.

It all came to an abrupt end after the clandestine practice was exposed in a series of groundbreaking revelations. Google came under intense scrutiny from a German watchdog after some 1,000 voice recordings were leaked to Dutch public broadcaster VRT NEWS last month. About one-tenth of recordings studied by VRT turned out to have been made in error, without a direct command by the customer. Caught red-handed, Google assured the regulator it would not be making any transcripts of speech data in the EU for at least the next three months.

Also on rt.com Siri ‘regularly’ records sex encounters, sends ‘countless’ private moments to Apple contractors

Apple said on Thursday that it was discontinuing the practice and initiating a “thorough review” as well. That was, however, not before an explosive Guardian report last week revealed that third-party contractors for Apple were able to listen to medical appointments, business deals, sexual intercourse and even what appeared to be criminal interactions while combing through the troves of data vacuumed by Siri.

Amazon was the last of the three to put the human reviews on pause, although Bloomberg reported back in April that “thousands” of Amazon employees could be snooping on customers’ “conversations” with Alexa with the ostensibly noble cause of upgrading the software.

Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!

Let's block ads! (Why?)

https://www.rt.com/news/465704-apple-amazon-alexa-spying/

2019-08-03 03:25:00Z
52780344161674

Best Buy’s weekend sale includes up to $500 off 12-inch MacBooks - Engadget

Sponsored Links

Roberto Machado Noa via Getty Images

Best Buy's three-day weekend sale includes a bunch of discounts on Apple and Amazon products, as well as cuts on laptops, TVs, smartwatches and smart home products. The sale runs through Sunday, and if you've been waiting to buy a new device, it's worth checking out.

Apple

The Apple discounts include up to $150 off iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max (with activation), $50 off select iPad Air models and $50 off Apple Watch Series 4 smartwatches. Plus, Best Buy is offering up to $500 off 8GB 12-inch MacBooks and $100 off the latest MacBook Air model.

Other laptop deals include up to $360 off select Microsoft Surface devices -- prices start as low as $599. Lenovo laptops start at $199, and you can save up to $200 on select Windows laptops.

Amazon

There are a handful of Amazon products on sale, too. Amazon Echo devices are discounted up to 50 percent with some models going for as little as $14.99. You can save between $25 and $100 on Amazon Fire TV devices. Amazon tablets start at $29.99, and Fire TV Edition TVs start at $79.00, a $70 savings.

You'll get a free Echo Dot if you spend $200 or more in smart home products, or if you buy a discounted Ring video doorbell. Amazon Kindle e-readers are on sale, as are Beats Solo³ Wireless Headphones in black. There are plenty of TV discounts to pick from, as well, like a $700 cut on the Samsung 82-inch Q6F Series smart TV.

Source: Best Buy

In this article: 12-inchMacbook, amazon, apple, apple watch, beats, best buy, business, buyers guide, deals, e-reader, echo, echo dot, fire tv, gadgetry, gadgets, gear, ipad air, iphone, kindle, lenovo, lenovo laptops, macbook air, microsoft, microsoft surface, price cut, price drop, sale, sales, samsung tv, tablets, thebuyersguide, windows laptop

All products recommended by Engadget are selected by our editorial team, independent of our parent company. Some of our stories include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Shares

Share

Tweet

Share

Save

Let's block ads! (Why?)

https://www.engadget.com/2019/08/02/best-buy-weekend-sale-buyers-guide/

2019-08-02 21:48:09Z
52780344320451

Google to auction slots on Android default search ‘choice screen’ in Europe next year, rivals cry ‘pay-to-play’ foul - TechCrunch

Starting early next year Google will present Android users in Europe with a search engine choice screen when handsets bundle its own search service by default.

In a blog post announcing the latest change to flow from the European Union’s record-breaking $5 billion antitrust enforcement against Android last year, when the Commission found Google had imposed illegal restrictions on device makers (OEMs) and carriers using its dominant smartphone platform, it says new Android phones will be shown the choice screen once during set-up (or again after any factory reset).

The screen will display a selection of three rival search engines alongside its own.

OEMs will still be able to offer Android devices in Europe that bundle a non-Google search engine by default (though per Google’s reworked licensing terms they have to pay it to do so). In those instances Google said the choice screen will not be displayed.

Google says rival search engines will be selected for display on the default choice screen, per market, via a fixed-price sealed bid annual auction — with any winners (and/or eligible search providers) being displayed in a random order alongside its own.

Search engines that win the auction will secure one of three open slots on the choice screen, with Google’s own search engine always occupying one of the four total slots.

“In each country auction, search providers will state the price that they are willing to pay each time a user selects them from the choice screen in the given country,” it writes. “Each country will have a minimum bid threshold. The three highest bidders that meet or exceed the bid threshold for a given country will appear in the choice screen for that country.”

If there aren’t enough bids to surface three winners per auction then Google says it will randomly select from a pool of eligible search providers, which it is also inviting to apply to participate in the choice screen. (Eligibility criteria can be found here.)

“Next year, we’ll introduce a new way for Android users to select a search provider to power a search box on their home screen and as the default in Chrome (if installed),” it writes. “Search providers can apply to be part of the new choice screen, which will appear when someone is setting up a new Android smartphone or tablet in Europe.”

“As always, people can continue to customize and personalize their devices at any time after set up. This includes selecting which apps to download, changing how apps are arranged on the screen, and switching the default search provider in apps like Google Chrome,” it adds.

Google’s blog post makes no mention of whether the choice screen will be pushed to the installed base of Android devices. But a spokeswoman told us the implementation requires technical changes that means it can only be supported on new devices.

Default selections on a dominant platform are of course hugely important for gaining or sustaining market share. And it’s only since competition authorities dialed up their scrutiny that the company has started to make some shifts in how it bundles its own services in dominant products such as Android and Chrome.

Earlier this year Google quietly added rival pro-privacy search engine DuckDuckGo as one of the default choices offered by its Chrome browser, for example.

In April it also began rolling out choice screens to both new and existing Android users in Europe — offering a prompt to download additional search apps and browsers.

In the latter case, each screen shows five apps in total, including whatever search and browser is already installed. Apps not already installed are included based on their market popularity and shown in a random order.

French pro-privacy search engine Qwant told us that since the rollout of the app service choice screen to Android devices the share of Qwant users using its search engine on mobile has leapt up from around 2% to more than a quarter (26%) of its total user base.

Qwant co-founder and CEO Eric Léandri said the app choice screen shows that competing against Google on search is possible — but only “thanks to the European Commission” stepping in and forcing the unbundling.

However, he raised serious concerns about the sealed bid auction structure that Google has announced for the default search choice — pointing out that many of the bidders for the slots will also be using Google advertising and technology; while the sealed structure of the auction means no-one outside Google will know what prices are being submitted as bids, making it impossible for rivals to know whether the selections Google makes are fair.

Even Google’s own FAQ swings abruptly from claims of the auction it has devised being “a fair and objective method” for determining which search providers get slots, to a flat “no” and “no” on any transparency on bid amounts or the number of providers it deems eligible per market…

“Even if Google is Google some people can choose something else if they have the choice. But now that Google knows it, it wants to stop the process,” Léandri told TechCrunch.

“It is not up to Google to now charge its competitors for its faulty behavior and the amount of the fine, through an auction system that will benefit neither European consumers nor free competition, which should not be distorted by such process,” Qwant added in an emailed press statement. “The proposed bidding process would be open to so-called search engines that derive their results and revenues from Google, thereby creating an unacceptable distortion and a high risk of manipulation, inequity or disloyalty of the auction.”

“The decision of the European Commission must benefit European consumers by ensuring the conditions of a freedom of choice based on the intrinsic merits of each engine and the expectations of citizens, especially regarding the protection of their personal data, and not on their ability to fund Google or to be financed by it,” it also said.

In a further complaint, Léandri said Google is requiring bidders in the choice screen auction to sign an NDA in order to participate — which Qwant argues would throw a legal obstacle in the way of it being able to participate, considering it is a complainant in the EU’s antitrust case (ongoing because Google is appealing).

“Qwant cannot accept that the auction process is subject to a non-disclosure agreement as imposed by Google while its complaint is still pending,” it writes. “Such a confidentiality agreement has no other possible justification than the desire to silence its competitors on the anomalies they would see. This, again, is an unacceptable abuse of its dominant position.”

We’ve reached out to the Commission with questions about Google’s choice screen auction.

DuckDuckGo founder Gabriel Weinberg has also been quick to point to flaws in the auction structure — writing on Twitter: “A ‘ballot box’ screen could be an excellent way to increase meaningful consumer choice if designed properly. Unfortunately, Google’s announcement today will not meaningfully deliver consumer choice.

“A pay-to-play auction with only 4 slots means consumers won’t get all the choices they deserve, and Google will profit at the expense of the competition. We encourage regulators to work with directly with Google, us, and others to ensure the best system for consumers.”

Let's block ads! (Why?)

https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/02/google-to-auction-slots-on-android-default-search-choice-screen-in-europe-next-year-rivals-cry-pay-to-play-foul/

2019-08-02 15:14:54Z
52780344211504