“Microsoft left little doubt Friday that it was one of the companies leading the charge against Google worldwide,” Tom Krazit reports for CNET.
“In a blog post entitled ‘Competition Authorities and Search,’ Microsoft Vice President and Deputy General Counsel Dave Heiner said part of the motivation for Microsoft and Yahoo’s search deal was ‘we are concerned about Google business practices that tend to lock in publishers and advertisers and make it harder for Microsoft to gain search volume,'” Krazit reports. “The post comes at the end of a week in which European authorities asked Google to explain its search algorithms after complaints from competitors–one of which is owned by Microsoft.”
Krazit reports, “‘Microsoft would obviously be among the first to say that leading firms should not be punished for their success,’ Heiner wrote in one of Microsoft’s strongest public statements regarding Google to date. ‘Our concerns relate only to Google practices that tend to lock in business partners and content (like Google Books) and exclude competitors, thereby undermining competition more broadly.'”
Krazit reports, “It’s personal, too. ‘Novell, when current Google CEO Eric Schmidt was at the helm, was never hesitant about complaining to regulators about Microsoft,’ Heiner wrote. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Schmidt are said to despise one another; according to court documents, Ballmer pledged to ‘f***ing kill Google’ after learning of Google’s plan to hire a key Microsoft engineer in 2005.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Better hang on, for the unmeasurable amount of hypocrisy generated by Microsoft complaining about a company locking-in people in order to stifle competition could easily be enough to rip a hole in the fabric of space and time.
Oh HELL just froze over. LOL
This is actually a great thing. Let ’em duke it out and get distracted.
Wow!!! I just saw a pig flying in my backyard!!!
Oh damn. I agree with Jubei. Lucifer must be having an ice age down there!
Must have been one heck of a glacier >:O
It’s like 10,000 spoons, when all you need is a knife.
Pot Kettle Black
My Irony Meter just caught on fire and exploded.
Microsoft goes after Google for anti-trust? That’s like the monopoly man sueing the person that owns hotels on boardwalk and park place. Look in the mirror Bill.
People do not choose Microsoft. So get over it Ballmer – and defend what is left for you to defend.
Imagine a world where Microsost had attained Google’s search share. Yuk!
Oh HELL just froze over. LOL [2]
LOL….. That is funny.
Amazing! No other company had killed off more innovation than Microsoft! The shoe is on the other foot now!
Karma is a bitch.
There’s the pot calling the kettle black.
Even with M$’s money they cannot hurt Google. Tough I say. Make better products and maybe people will try them.
The problem is that the regulatory bodies don’t want to make another mistake like they did with M$. So they could easily screw Google (and Apple for that matter with the iPod and iTunes domination) to avoid the same mess.
Sure, this is hypocrisy at its very zenith, but on the other hand, their claims may be true. Remember, just because someone has a MOTIVE to claim something is true that doesn’t mean it’s false.
Does anyone have any knowledge of the legal claims being made and the possibility that Google could be in the wrong?
I’ll go back and read the full article, but it’s CNET so I’m not expecting any depth here.
Huh. Yeah. After reading the article, it still doesn’t sound like Google has done a single thing that is anti-competitive. They simply own search the way Microsoft owns the O.S. world, and Microsoft is having a hissy-fit. Tough.
MS cannot compete when giving their software away (IE), now they can’t compete when paying people to search – only thing left is call in the lawyers…
Yes, googles search web page is too easy to use. If your honor wouldn’t mind ordering Google to clutter up the page a bit, say with a Silverlight area where the user must enter their search terms into, as well as ordering that Google randomize their results in say, 50% of all searches, then the field just might be more even…
What goes around, comes around.
Even though M$ is the big villan here, you almost feel sorry for them just how hapless they are today… I mean with bald clown embarrassing them on daily basis.
Google is actually more dangerous!
Hipocracy!
It sucks when someone is better than you, doesn’t it? Well, actually the only thing M$ is better is locking into crappy technology.
The Saints win the Superbowl – and now this?
Even if Microsoft’s accusations are true, which is highly unlikely (not because Google is angelic, but because Microsoft is psychotic), they richly deserve a taste of their own medicine.
Ha! Ha! Ha! The thief does not like being robed?!?