Learning From Microsoft's Error, Google Builds a Lobbying Engine
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When it comes to lobbying, Google does not intend to repeat the mistake that its rival Microsoft made a decade ago.
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Business & money: Microsoft is at the centre of an embarrassing row over an attempt by a lobby firm strongly linked with the Seattle computer giant to rally opposition against rival Google's proposed acqusition of internet marketing firm DoubleClick.
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Microsoft is defending itself against charges by Google that it rigged its new Vista operating system to give its desktop search software an unfair edge over that of its rivals.
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(InfoWorld) - Google has complained to federal antitrust officials that the search tool in Microsoft'sÂ Windows VistaÂ Â discourages customers from using its own search utility, the company confirmed Sunday. Stories posted to the Web sites of The New York Times (registration required)Â and theÂ Seattle Post-IntelligencerÂ SaturdayÂ first revealedÂ that Google's complaint centered on Vista's built-in desktop search software, dubbed Instant Search. According to both newspapers, Google accused Microsoft of designing Vista to discourage users from running its indexing and search software. On Sunday, Google spokesman Ricardo Reyes confirmed the charge. "Microsoft's current approach with Vista desktop search violates its agreement with the government and hurts consumers." he said in an e-mail to Computerworld. "The search boxes built throughout Vista are hard-wired to Microsoft's own desktop search product, with no way for users to choose an alternate provider from these visible search access points. Likewise, Vista makes it impractical to turn off Microsoft's search index." According to postings on Microsoft's support forums, the only way to completely disable Vista's search is to stop the Windows Search service in the Microsoft Management Console. Microsoft disputed Google's charges. "We've been working with state and federal antitrust officials for the past two years to ensure that there are no problems with any of the features in Windows Vista," said company spokesman Jack Evans. "These desktop search issues were reviewed at length with regulators prior to the release of Windows Vista and resulted in more than a dozen changes at their request." Even so, Microsoft will consider more changes to Vista, Evans added. "While we donât believe there are any compliance concerns with desktop search, we are committed to going the extra mile to resolve this issue, so long as the changes Google is requesting do nothing to undermine the privacy and security of computer users." During aÂ March 2007 hearingÂ conducted by Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, the federal judge who oversees the 2002 Microsoft consent decree, the government's status report noted that a complaint had been filed, but did not identify the company. "At the last status conference, plaintiffs reported that they had just received a middleware-related complaint," theÂ status reportÂ read. "Since then, plaintiffs have been investigating this complaint, including obtaining significant additional information from Microsoft and the complainant." Google had previously raised concerns about search in Microsoft'sÂ Internet Explorer 7Â browser with federal officials. In May 2006, however,Â federal officials rebuffed Google, saying that IE 7 users could easily switch search providers and that computer makers could set the default search engine in IE 7 before shipping systems. Google has also filed similar complaints over search in both IE 7 and Vista with the European Union's antitrust commission. Those complaints have not been settled. According to The New York Times, the U.S. Department of Justice refused to pursue the Google complaint, andÂ Thomas Barnett,Â the assistant U.S. attorney general for antitrust, sent a memo to numerous state attorneys general in May asking them to also reject the complaint. Prosecutors in several of those states, however, have reportedly decided to investigate the Google concerns whether the federal government goes along or not, a decision that has Barnett reconsidering the agency's position. E-mails and phone calls asking several of the states involved with the 2004 Microsoft settlement to comment were not returned Sunday. Barnett's division will present its next report on Microsoft's progress in meeting the 2002 settlement to Kollar-Kotelly in a hearing scheduled for June 26. Â
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Google envisions the policy to be a product of self-regulation by companies, improved laws and possible new ones.
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Out Googling Google on bespoke scale Comment Should Microsoft's bid for Yahoo! go through, the combined company would face one very major infrastructure question - how far is it willing to go in the war against Google?â¦Learn &amp; Contribute, Live &amp; Online - The Register Debates Green Computing
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John Markoff in the New York Times reports that a computer science professor and two of his students have discovered a &quot;composition flaw&quot; in Google&#39;s desktop search application.
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Microsoft Corp. isn&#39;t often an underdog in anything, so when the software powerhouse released its new search engine, I was anxious to give it a whirl.
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The changes are in response to a complaint by Google that a feature of the operating system is anticompetitive.
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Googleâs management team has an obsession with Microsoft, and that oversensitivity may well cloud their reaction to the prospect of Microsoft buying Yahoo.
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Blog: The search giant submits another brief in support of its effort to have a say in Microsoft's ongoing antitrust issue.
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The secret lobbying campaign your phone company doesn't want you to know about
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Blog: The U.S. government rejected Google's initial complaint that Microsoft was engaging in anticompetitive behavior, but at least one state attorney general is willing to look into it.
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Google and the History of Link Building  I can't begin to tell you how sick I am of reading articles and posts that mention the two words "Google" and "penalty" in the same sentence!  So many webmasters are walking on eggshells these days when it comes to Google, and it just doesn't ...
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Start a debate on Microsoft and there will be a thousand people ready with a hundred errors they have faced in the last 2 days! Give them a chance and the world will pounce on this monopolistic company ready to sue them for the craziest of reasons.
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Dodgeballs AAAS Larry Page, the most reclusive of Google's ruling triumvirate gave a rare public speech at the AAAS meeting in San Francisco on Friday. During an hour long session he revealed an instinctive allergy to the firm's political significance.â¦
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By Alan MacDermid  WHAT, only a billion dollars? What have they been doing for the past three months? It's not the reaction you normally expect to good news, but Google, the search engine that threatens to eat cyberspace, has just had a hard lesson in avarice from its shareholders.