The market for Internet search is not only economically and socially important, it is also highly concentrated. Is this a problem? We study the question whether 'competition is only a free click away'. We argue that the market for Internet search is characterized by indirect network...

We study the pricing and tipping behaviour of users of the online service 'Google Answers'. While they set a price for the answer to their question ex ante, they can additionally give a tip to the researcher ex post. We develop a model that is based on reciprocal theories of social preferences...

With its judgment of 10th November 2021, Europe’s General Court did not just dismiss Google’s appeal against the European Commission’s Google Search (Shopping) decision, uphold the fine, tell gatekeepers “don’t be evil,” and remind everyone that Europe ensures equal opportunities....

We propose a duopoly model of competition between internet search engines endowed with different technologies and study the effects of an agreement where the more advanced firm shares its technology with the inferior one. We show that the superior firm enters the agreement only if it results in...

Search engines hold the key to helping consumers access the wealth of information on the web. In this paper I examine the evolution of and competition in the internet search engine market. The goal of my analysis is to examine whether early entrants benefit in the long-run from their first-mover...

The market for Internet search is not only economically and socially important, it is also highly concentrated. Is this a problem? We study the question whether "competition is only a free click away". We argue that the market for Internet search is characterized by indirect network...

Click fraud is the practice of deceptively clicking on search ads with the intention of either increasing third-party website revenues or exhausting an advertiser's budget. Search advertisers are forced to trust that search engines do everything possible to detect and prevent click fraud even...

Der vorliegende Beitrag betrachtet die wettbewerbs- und medienökonomischen Eigenschaften und Effekte von algorithmischen Such- und Empfehlungssystemen und ihrer Regulierung. Dabei werden nach einer einführenden Klarstellung des Sinns und der Notwendigkeit solcher Systeme in der digitalen Welt...

Questions about search engine bias have percolated in the academic literature for over a decade. In the past few years, the issue has evolved from a quiet academic debate to a full-blown regulatory and litigation frenzy. At the center of this maelstrom is Google, the dominant market player. This...

This paper examines a firm's incentive to supply information through advertising when consumers can choose between buying immediately and searching for additional information. The presence of consumer search, which may lower sales, creates incentives for the firm to deter search. We show that...