Google is pressing The Federal Justice Department to extend its ruling against Microsoft’s in 2002 for its antitrust case citing that Microsoft recent, “Microsoft’s hardwiring of its own desktop search product into Windows Vista violates the final judgment”
Google who was recently in the news, reluctant to stand forward in their own claims against Microsoft saying their Vista platform was unfair to all other search engines. Google’s claimed that Vista purposely slowed down user using third party search results, and was preferential to Internet Explorer. Microsoft had agreed to alter their Vista software to make it more user friendly to other search engines but said they felt that they had adequately testing Vista prior to its release date to make sure that it would work with all programs outside of Microsoft’s platforms.
Google, acting like the red-headed step brother, continues to complain and attempt to discredit, and tarnish Microsoft, perhaps in order to ultimately better themselves.
Google, who currently is the leader of search result used by the world, seems to always attempt to decrease others productivity when they can not compete. Webmasters have recently been highly critical of Google’s new webmaster resources and guideline to webmasters in which they may now be penalizes for selling advertising from their websites.
Webmasters view this as a way to hurt our business and question, “Why is Google allowed to make millions every year selling advertising yet the webmasters, that make their business possible, will be penalized in their SEs for selling ads on their own sites.
I believe Google will soon come under close scrutiny by justice department for their own practices, and therefore calling constant attention to Microsoft will only eventually turn the spotlight back on to themselves… or so many webmasters hope.
Microsoft has agreed to change their newly launched Vistas operating system in response to Google’s complaint that it is not in compliance claiming the program is anticompetitive and is in conflict with Microsoft’s 2002 antitrust settlement.
Google has attempted to keep a low key part in this complaint due to their recent acquisition of DoubleClick coming under intense scrutiny by the FTC beginning an antitrust investigation.
The claim Google has made is that the Vista system slows down anyone trying to use any browser other then Internet Explorer. Microsoft says that Vista does allow for other search engines to be used, although it does have Internet Explorer set as the default browser, which is in compliance with their previous antitrust settlement.
In this settlement agreement Microsoft has said they will inform people how to change their search engine in their desktop but they will not concede to all of Google’s demands for changes in the program.
Microsoft claims that the Vista software was carefully designed to work well with all programs and that a separate committee tested Vista for years before its release to be sure it did not conflict with their previous antitrust settlement.
So what do you think? Is Google in the right or are they just trying to make trouble for Microsoft? If Vista truly works with programs developed by other companies, are they really out of compliance? Should Microsoft truly be punished for being able to put out operating systems that Google can’t possibly compete with?
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has begun a preliminary investigation into the Google DoubleClick deal claiming antitrust laws. The delay in this action was only because it was being decided whether it would be the Justice Department or the FTC that would investigate this issue. The preliminary investigation was announced last week by an unidentified source for the FTC.
Google, who is known to have massive amounts of information about the peoples usage of its site is said to gain an unfair advantage with the addition of DoubleClick’s information. DoubleClick tracks the information of what websites people visit, Google tracking every aspect of what people are searching for. The FTC is investigating if this will give them an unfair standing in the Internet world with having more knowledge about the internet then any other company in the world.
Antitrust issues over internet companies will force the FTC and Justice Department to consider new facets of their laws. Not only looking at the size o companies and their hold on a technology, but now they must look at the bar information a company has. Will the acquisition of DoubleClick and its massive amount of information in and of itself cause an unfair advantage to other search engines like MSN and Yahoo, therefore making it an unfair advantage?
The outcome in the FTC’s findings will set a precedent for the future of Internet companies and new guidelines that will have to be adhered to in the future.
Google is confident that the FTC will allow the acquisition and will come to the conclusion that it poses no threat to fair competition online, but then again, what company that has gone through this type of scrutiny ever felt that their acquisition shouldn’t be allowed?
