Google favors its own services in search results, study finds

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last updated 29 June 2015

By favoring its own services in search results, Google is harming not only competitors, but also its own consumers, a new study found. Users were 45 percent more likely to click on organically generated search results, according to the study, though Google search results favor their own services.

"This suggests that by leveraging dominance in search to promote its internal content, Google is reducing social welfare — leaving consumers with lower quality results and worse matches," the researchers wrote. Though the study was co-authored by Michael Luca of Harvard Business School and Tim Wu of Columbia Law School, it was financed by online reviews company Yelp, one of the complainants in the ongoing EU antitrust case against Google.