Competition in the web search market: impact of user behaviour

Titolo Rivista MERCATI E COMPETITIVITÀ
Autori/Curatori Natalia Kudryashova
Anno di pubblicazione 2016 Fascicolo 2016/1 Lingua Inglese
Numero pagine 31 P. 145-175 Dimensione file 237 KB
DOI 10.3280/MC2016-001008
Il DOI è il codice a barre della proprietà intellettuale: per saperne di più clicca qui

Qui sotto puoi vedere in anteprima la prima pagina di questo articolo.

Se questo articolo ti interessa, lo puoi acquistare (e scaricare in formato pdf) seguendo le facili indicazioni per acquistare il download credit. Acquista Download Credits per scaricare questo Articolo in formato PDF

Anteprima articolo

FrancoAngeli è membro della Publishers International Linking Association, Inc (PILA)associazione indipendente e non profit per facilitare (attraverso i servizi tecnologici implementati da CrossRef.org) l’accesso degli studiosi ai contenuti digitali nelle pubblicazioni professionali e scientifiche

The success of a search provider in a competitive environment is closely linked to its popularity with the users. This paper studies the effects of user perception and behaviour on the dynamics of the web search market and presents a model based on factors traditionally left out of economic models, such as the user’s habitual attraction to a particular provider and brand loyalty. It estimates the prevalence of biased switching behaviour in the desktop internet search market and outlines the expected future dynamics of the market, should current trends continue. It further discusses the interpretation of the empirical data concerning the market share, which may be relevant in the context of litigation against Google.

Keywords:Internet search, customer behaviour, competition, modelling

  1. Ammori M. and Pelican L. (2012). Proposed Remedies for Search Bias:’Search Neutrality’ and Other Proposals in the Google Inquiry. Available at SSRN 2058159.
  2. Apple Inc (2015). Investor Relations. Accessed via http://investor.apple.com/Argenton C. and Prüfer J. (2012). Search engine competition with network externalities. Journal of Competition Law and Economics, 8(1): 73-105.
  3. Armstrong M. (2006). Competition in two-sided markets. The RAND Journal of Economics, 37(3): 668-691.
  4. Armstrong M. and Wright J. (2007). Two-Sided Markets, Competitive Bottlenecks and Exclusive Contracts. Economic Theory, Springer, vol. 32(2), pages 353-38.
  5. Arthur C. (2015). Guardian Technology. Accessed via http://www.theguardian.com/uk/technology.
  6. Assay M. (2008). Breaking the Google habit. Accessed via http://www.cnet.com/news/breaking-the-google-habit/.
  7. Athey S. and Ellison G. (2011). Position auctions with consumer search. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 126: 1213-1270.
  8. Auriol E. & Benaim M. (2000). Standardization in decentralized economies. American Economic Review, 90(3): 550-570.
  9. Battelle J. (2005). The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture. Penguin.
  10. Bing Blog (2014). Going Head-to-Head – And Why Online Searching Has Changed Forever. Accessed via http://blogs.bing.com/uk/2014/04/29/going-head-to-headand-why-online-searching-has-changed-forever/.
  11. Bhasin K. (2011). The 20 Brands With The Most Loyal Customers. Accessed via http://www.businessinsider.com/brand-loyalty-customers-2011-9#ixzz3ijgt94R7.
  12. Bloomberg (2013). Google sued by Streetmap over ‘anti-competitive’ search results. Accessed via http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/9989062/Googlesued-by-Streetmap-over-anti-competitive-search-results.html.
  13. Brezina, C. (2012). Sergey Brin, Larry Page, Eric Schmidt, and Google. The Rosen Publishing Group.
  14. Brin S. and Page L. (1998). The Anatomy of a Large Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine. In: Seventh International World Wide Web Conference (WWW 1998).
  15. Bork R.H. & Sidak J.G. (2012). What does the Chicago school teach about Internet search and the antitrust treatment of Google?. Journal of Competition Law and Economics, 8(4): 663-700.
  16. ComScore Inc. (2015). Accessed via http://www.comscore.com.
  17. Casadesus-Masanell, R., and Ghemawat. P. (2006), Dynamic Mixed Duopoly: A Model Motivated by Linux vs. Windows. Management Science, 52 (7): 1072-1084.
  18. Chen, Y., and He C. (2011). Paid Placement: Advertising and Search on the Internet. The Economic Journal, 121 (556): F309-F328. Case D.O. (2012). Looking for Information. A Survey of Research on Information Seeking, Needs and Behavior. Emerald Group Publishing Ltd.
  19. Choi, J.P., (2010). Tying in two-sided markets with multi-homing. The Journal of Industrial Economics, 58(3): 607-626.
  20. Connaway L.S., Dickey T.J. & Radford M.L. (2011). If it is too inconvenient I’m not going after it: Convenience as a critical factor in information-seeking behaviors. Library & Information Science Research, 33(3): 179-190.
  21. Crane D.A. (2012). Search Neutrality and Referral Dominance. Journal of Competition Law & Economics, 8 (3): 459-468.
  22. Devine K.L. (2008). Preserving Competition in Multi-Sided Innovative Markets: How Do You Solve a Problem Like Google?. North Carolina Journal of Law & Technology, 10(59).
  23. Dick A.S., Basu K. (1994). Customer loyalty: toward an integrated conceptual framework. Journal of the academy of marketing science, 22(2): 99-113.
  24. Edelman B. Lockwood B. (2011). Measuring bias in organic Web search. http://www.benedelman.org/searchbias/.
  25. Edelman B. Ostrovsky M. and Schwarz M. (2007). Internet Advertising and the Generalized Second-Price Auction: Selling Billions of Dollars Worth of Keywords. The American Economic Review, 97: 1242
  26. Gallaugher J.M. & Downing C.E. (2000). Portal combat: an empirical study of competition in the web portal industry. Journal of Information Technology Management, 11(1-2): 13-24.
  27. Gandal N. (2001). The dynamics of competition in the Internet search engine market. International Journal of Industrial Organization, 19(7): 1103-1117.
  28. Grimmelmann J. (2010): Some skepticism about search neutrality. In Szoka B. and Marcus A. (Eds). The Next Digital Decade: Essays on the Future of the Internet. Washington, DC: TechFreedom, .435-59.
  29. Google Inc. (2013). Investor relations and information about the company. Accessed via http://investor.google.com.financial/.
  30. de Kunder M. (2015). The size of the World Wide Web (The Internet). Accessed via http://www.worldwidewebsize.com/.
  31. Goldstein D.G., McAfee R.P. & Suri S. (2013). The cost of annoying ads. In Proceedings of the 22nd international conference on World Wide Web, 459-470.
  32. Hassan A., Jones R. & Klinkner K.L. (2010). Beyond DCG: user behavior as a predictor of a successful search. In Proceedings of the third ACM international conference on Web search and data mining, 221-230.
  33. Hopf T. (2010). The logic of habit in International Relations. European Journal of International Relations, 16(4): 539-561.
  34. Huang P., Lurie N.H. & Mitra S. (2009). Searching for experience on the web: an empirical examination of consumer behavior for search and experience goods. Journal of Marketing, 73(2): 55-69.
  35. Inside Google (2010). Traffic Report: How Google Is Squeezing Out Competitors And Muscling Into New Markets. Accessed via http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/resources/TrafficStudy-Google.pdf.
  36. Internet Live Stats (2015). Internet Live Stats. Accessed via http://www.internetlivestats.com/.
  37. Internet World Stats (2015). Internet Growth Statistics. Accessed via http://www.internetworldstats.com/emarketing.htm.
  38. Jamison M.A. (2012). Should Google Search be Regulated as a Public Utility? University of Florida, Department of Economics, PURC Working Paper. Jansen B., Zhang L. and Mattil A. (2012). Investigating Brand Knowledge of Web Search Engines. Electronic Commerce Research, 12(4): 429-454.
  39. Jansen B., Zhang M. and Zhang Y. (2007). The effect of brand awareness on the evaluation of search engine results. Computer Human Interaction 2007 Conference.
  40. Jansen B., Zhang M., Schultz C.D. (2009). Brand and its effect on user perception of search engine performance. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 60(8): 1572-1595.
  41. Johnson E.J., Moe W.W., Fader P.S., Bellman S. & Lohse G. L. (2004). On the depth and dynamics of online search behavior. Management Science, 50(3): 299-308.
  42. Kalberg S. (1980). Max Weber’s Types of Rationality: Cornerstones for the Analysis of Rationalization Processes in History. The American Journal of Sociology, 85(5): 1145-1179.
  43. Katz M. and Shapiro S. (1985) Network externalities, competition and compatability. American Economic Review, 75(3): 424-440.
  44. Kudryashova N. (2014). The market of internet sponsored links in the context of competition law: can modeling help?. In Proceedings of the companion publication of the 23rd international conference on World wide web companion (pp. 331-332)
  45. Kudryashova N. (2015a). Modeling the Internet Search Market: a Step in Bringing the User into the Picture. Appl. Math, 9(2L): 291-296.
  46. Kudryashova N. (2015b). Strategic Games In A Competitive Market: Feedback From The Users’ Environment.
  47. Larouche P. and Schinkel, M.P. (2014). Continental Drift in the Treatment of Dominant Firms: Article 102 TFEU in Contrast to § 2 Sherman Act, Oxford Handbook of International Antitrust Economics. Sokol, D. & Blair, R. (eds.). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2: 153-187 35 p.
  48. Lawrence S. and Giles C.L. (1999). Accessibility of information on the web. Nature, 400(6740): 107-107.
  49. Lianos I. and Motchenkova E. (2013). Market Dominance and Search Quality in the Search Engine Market. Journal of Competition Law and Economics, 9 (2): 419-455.
  50. Lin H.-H. and Wang Y.-S. (2006). An examination of the determinants of customer loyalty in mobile commerce contexts. Information & Management, 43: 271-282.
  51. Luchetta G. (2013). Is the Google platform a two-sided market?. Mercato Concorrenza Regole, 15(1): 83-118.
  52. Manne G.A. and Wright J.D (2011). Google and the Limits of Antitrust: The Case Against the Case Against Google. Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy.
  53. Matilla A. (2003). The impact of cognitive inertia on post-consumption evaluation process. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 31(3): 287-299.
  54. Matos C.A. & Veiga R.T. (2005). How to deal with negative publicity: the importance of consumer involvement. Brazilian Administration Review, 2(1): 57-72.
  55. Microsoft Inc. (2015). Investor relations. Accessed on http://www.microsoft.com/investor/.
  56. Mukhopadhyay T., Rajan U., Telang R. (2004). Competition Between Internet Search Engines. System Sciences, 2004. Proceedings of the 37th Annual Hawaii International Conference on search engines.
  57. NetApplications (2015). Accessed via http://marketshare.hitslink.com/.
  58. Notess G. (2015). Accessed via http://searchengineshowdown.com/.
  59. Oliver R.L. (1997). Satisfaction. A Behavioral Perspective on the Consumer. New York: McGraw-Hill. Oliver R.L. (1999). Whence Consumer Loyalty. Journal of Marketing, 63: 33-44
  60. Oliver J. (2015). The consumer’s perspective on evaluating products: service is the key. Journal of Services Marketing, 29(3): 200-210.
  61. OMD UK Ltd (2013). Future of Britain report.
  62. Pan B., Hembrooke H., Joachims T., Lorigo L., Gay G. and Granka L. (2007). In google we trust: Users’ decisions on rank, position, and relevance. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 12(3): 801-823.
  63. Park S. (2004). Quantitative Analysis of Network Extenalities in Competing Technologies: The VCR case. Review of Economics and Statistics, 86(4): 937-945.
  64. Penna L. and Quaresma M. (2015). How We Perceive Search Engines. Springer International Publishing.
  65. Prusa T.J. and Schmitz J.A. (1991). Are new firms an important source of innovation?: Evidence from the PC software industry. Economics Letters, 35(3): 339-342.
  66. Rochet J. and Tirole J. (2003). Platform competition in two-sided markets. Journal of the European Economic Association, 1(4): 990-1029.
  67. Siegler M.G. (2010). When Google Wanted To Sell To Excite For Under $1 Million — And They Passed. Accessed via http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/29/google-excite/.
  68. SimilarWeb LTD (2015). Mysearchdial.com. Accessed via http://www.similarweb.com.
  69. Statscounter (2015). StatCounter Global Stats. Accessed via http://gs.statcounter.com/.
  70. Taylor G. (2013). Search quality and revenue cannibalization by competing search engines. Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, 22(3): 445-467.
  71. Telang R. and Mukhopadhyay T. (2005). Drivers of web portal use. Electronic Commerce Research and Applications, 4: 49-65.
  72. Telang R., Mukhopadhyay T. and Wilcox R. (2000). An empirical analysis of Internet search engine choice. Working Paper, Pittsburgh, PA: Carnegie Mellon University.
  73. Telang R., Rajan U. and Mukhopadhyay T. (2004). The market structure for Internet search engines. Journal of Management Information Systems, 21(2): 137-160.
  74. van Couvering (2008). The History of the Internet Search Engine: Navigational Media and the Traffic Commodity. Web Search. Information Science and Knowledge Management, 14: 177-206
  75. van Eijk N. (2007). Search Engines, the new bottleneck for content access. International Telecommunications Society, ITS 19th European Regional Conference.
  76. Wall A. (2015). History of search engines: from 1945 to Google today. Retrieved from http://www.searchenginehistory.com/.
  77. Wright J.D. (2011). Defining and Measuring Search Bias: Some Preliminary Evidence, Accessed via http://laweconcenter.org/images/articles/definingmeasuring.pdf.
  78. Yahoo! Inc. (2015). Investor relations. Accessed via http://investor.yahoo.net/index.cfm.
  79. Yang Y., Zeng D., Yang Y. & Zhang J. (2015). Optimal budget allocation across search advertising markets. INFORMS Journal on Computing, 27(2): 285-300.
  80. Zhao W. and Tse E. (2011). Competition in Search Engine Market. Journal of Business Strategies, 28(2): 123-150.

Natalia Kudryashova, Competition in the web search market: impact of user behaviour in "MERCATI E COMPETITIVITÀ" 1/2016, pp 145-175, DOI: 10.3280/MC2016-001008