Google Chairman Eric Schmidt was in Berlin on Monday to speak at the headquarters of Native Instruments to discuss innovation, technology and the future of the internet. In a bid to change a growing negative impression of the search giant by European policy makers, Schmidt offered some valuable insights in an attempt to improve relations.
One of the more startling revelations revealed by Schmidt is that Google views the online shopping giant, Amazon, as a major search competitor. Schmidt is quoted as saying;
“really, our biggest search competitor is Amazon. People don’t think of Amazon as search, but if you are looking for something to buy, you are more often than not looking for it on Amazon . . .”
Of the many points raised, the main theme of the talk seemed to be that Google is doing it’s best to return relevant search results to users further reinforcing it’s stance that “search is for users not websites.