Google Accuses Microsoft Of Antitrust Violations
Neither Google nor Microsoft are strangers to antitrust accusations, but recently the two have been butting heads more frequently. Last month Microsoft asked the federal government to review Google’s proposed merger with DoubleClick and now it seems, according to the New York Times, that Google has been doing the same behind closed doors.
The New York Times reports that Google filed a confidential complaint with the Justice Department several months ago asking that the government to force Microsoft to alter Vista’s desktop search behavior claiming antitrust violations.
Google claims that Vista’s indexing behavior cannot be turned off and alternative services (namely Google Desktop) thus create an additional drag on system resource (making them appear less effective).
According to The Times:
When the Google and Vista search programs are run simultaneously on a computer, their indexing programs slow the operating system considerably, Google contended. As a result, Google said that Vista violated Microsoft???s 2002 antitrust settlement, which prohibits Microsoft from designing operating systems that limit the choices of consumers.
Similar charges about Internet Explorer being embedded into the OS are what landed Microsoft in its famous antitrust suit in the 1990s. However the actual suit began with charges that Microsoft bullied Compaq by threatening to terminate of Compaq’s Windows license agreement if it bundled the Netscape browser with Windows.
As a result of that case Microsoft worked with the US government before Vista’s release to ensure that no violations were present and the government officials gave Vista the thumbs up.
Perhaps it’s not surprising then that Thomas Barnett, who heads the Justice Department’s antitrust division, circulated a memo to state Attorney Generals asking them to reject Google’s complaint.
However, many might be surprised to learn that, as The Times points out, Barnett also happens to be the former vice chair of the antitrust and consumer protection practice group at the DC law firm Covington & Burling — a firm that represented Microsoft throughout its antitrust suit.
The Times chocks the memo up to “the political transformation of Microsoft, as well as the shift in antitrust policy between officials appointed by President Bill Clinton and by President Bush.”
