German search results

Despite a vote in EU parliament to break up Google and a recent Madrid decision that terminated Google News in Spain, a whopping 95 percent of Germans continue to use the California-based company's search engine to help them find whatever it is they're looking for, according to data from the independent German statistics portal Statista.de.

And in 2014, that meant:

1. World Cup 2014. (Also the most tweeted event of the year, worldwide.)

2. Michael Schumacher - Germany's former Formula 1 star who suffered a head injury while skiing in France in December 2013, and is reportedly making progress on his recovery.

3. iPhone 6. Who said Germans aren't early adopters?

4. ImmobilienScout24, an online portal where users can list or peruse available apartments, condos, houses or property.

5. BSI Sicherheitstest, an online, publicly funded tool allowing Germans to see if their email accounts have been hacked. Given German history, Germans are especially wary of being spied on.

By comparison, the worldwide top five rankings were: Robin Williams, World Cup, Ebola, Malaysia Airlines and ALS ice bucket challenge.

Germans' fifth-most-popular search, the email security test, is also a hint what mattered to them in the "technology" search category.

In second place for technology (behind "iPhone") was Threema, an encrypted messaging app from the eponymous Swiss company. That app is specifically designed to thwart the NSA from doing the kind of international cybersnooping that went all the way up to the German chancellor.

Third place in tech was Netflix, unveiled in Germany this year, followed by the Samsung Galaxy S5 smart phone, and iOS 8.

In the politicians category, it comes as little surprise that German Chancellor Angela Merkel took top slot. She was followed by Russian President Vladimir Putin, US President Barack Obama, Former South African President Nelson Mandela and disgraced former German parliamentarian Sebastian Edathy.

Doing their own Bing

Microsoft's Bing, which according to Statista.de takes 2.5 percent of the German Internet search haul, divvied up its "music" search results into international and national categories.

Internationally, Rihanna, Katy Perry, One Direction, Taylor Swift and Eminem took spots one through five, while top domestic accolades went to Helene Fischer, whose "Breathless through the night" ("Atemlos durch die Nacht") single became one of two unofficial World Cup anthems in Germany. Fischer was followed by Eurovision winner Conchita Wurst and three German groups whose names end in "o": Cro, Bushido and Sido.

In sports, Bing searchers - as it turns out - have different MVPs than Googlers. The former wanted to know more about Mario Götze, whose golden left boot gave Germany its fourth World Cup star. But Googlers relegated him to fifth, behind the above-mentioned Michael Schumacher as well as Brazil's Neymar, German goalkeeper Neuer and striker Müller.

Nor were Bundesliga standings reflected in Bing's search results. In something of an inversion of reality, Bing results show Borussia Dortmund coming in first to Bayern Munich's second - an improvement for the Bavarians on their fourth-place Bing ranking one year earlier.

In the film category, Bingers liked fire-breathing lizards this year in the form of Godzilla and How to Train Your Dragon 2, while Googlers were a bit dystopian: Their top five included Mockingjay and Divergent.

Yahoo, with two percent of the search engine market, did not respond to a DW request for 2014 data.

Previous analyses of German search habits have shown that the country plans ahead. A review of worldwide 2012 search habits by the creators of the Future Orientation Index found that Germans had searched for "2013" more than any other country. That led some researchers to conclude that Europe's largest country by population is also the most concerned about the future.

Cultural pundits noted, however, that Germans could just be booking the best hotels on Mallorca before anyone else does.