⁍ Google last year allowed rivals to compete to be the default search engines on new Android devices in Europe via quarterly auctions.

---

⁍ Google has said the auctions aim to give all search providers an equal opportunity to bid and not to give certain rivals special treatment.

---

– Google’s latest pay-to-play auction for Android devices didn’t go well for the search giant, which was fined $5.1 billion last year for anti-competitive practices. In an open letter to EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager, DuckDuckGo, France’s Qwant, Lilo, Germany’s Ecosia, and Czech peer Seznam ask for a meeting with Vestager “with the goal of establishing an effective preference menu” for Android users, Reuters reports. Google’s latest pay-to-play auction was won by Microsoft’s Bing, Puerto Rico-based PrivacyWall, and US-based Info.com. DuckDuckGo, which won September’s auction in eight countries, criticized the process at that time, saying it encouraged bidders to exploit users. “Google’s auction further incentivizes search engines to be worse on privacy, to increase ads, and to not donate to good causes, because, if they do those things, then they could afford to bid higher,” DuckDuckGo said in a blog post. Google has said the auctions aim to give all search providers an equal opportunity to bid and not to give certain rivals special treatment. Microsoft’s Bing, Puerto Rico-based PrivacyWall, and US-based Info.com were the main winners of its recent quarterly auction. As in any auction, the bidders offer payment for the access but how much they are paying has not been revealed.