Can a Blockchain-powered Search Engine Take On a Leviathan Like Google?
Google , a search engine that began as a research project back in 1996, has come to dominate the world of search. This immense domination of the Internet by Google led the Australian government to launch the latest probe into the company’s monopoly on Dec. 4. And in June the European Union fined the company a record € 2.4 bln for manipulating search records. The EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager told The Verge : “What Google has done is illegal under EU antitrust rules. It denied other companies the chance to compete on the merits and to innovate. And most importantly, it denied European consumers a genuine choice of services and the full benefits of innovation.” Clearly, the search engine sector could need an infusion of fresh blood to not only keep the spirit of innovation alive but to also give consumers a choice. What if the next generation of search engine was powered by the community and based on open source technology? Pres...