• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, September 29, 2020

Microsoft's Bing won some key slots in Google’s search auction, allowing the company to appear as a download prompt on new phones running Android in Germany, Sweden, Spain, the United Kingdom, France, among others.

Google, which becomes an option in all countries, announced the results of the auction on Tuesday, showing Bing won slots in 13 countries. But Bing wasn’t the big winner in this auction.

The search engine info.com won slots on a choice screen for new Android phones in all 31 countries, PrivacyWall won slots in 22 countries, and GMX in 16 countries. The privacy engine DuckDuckGo won eight slots in smaller markets.

The Russian search engine Yandex won slots in eight countries: Bulgaria, Estonia, Greece, Hungry, Latvia, Portugal, the Republic of Cypress, and Romania.

The rules also allows Search providers to withdraw in countries where they have won a given auction. As a result, the final set of providers that appear in each country may vary from the final list.

The choice screen will always show a maximum of four providers. The auction winners and Google will be ordered randomly in the choice screen. If there’s a tie, Google will allocate the slots randomly among the tied bidders on a per-device basis.

In August 2019, Google said it would give Android users in Europe a choice to select a provider to power a search box on their home screen and as the default in Chrome when installed.

The changes comply with the European Union ruling handed down in 2019. The EU changed Google unfair practices, saying it had an advantage by pre-installing its Chrome browser and Google search app on Android smartphones and notebooks.