04.01.09
Microsoft is Still Attacking Google via Publishers
Summary: Microsoft is creating wars against Google, poaching Yahoo! staff
IT IS NEITHER news nor only a theory that Microsoft is encouraging companies and other entities to sue or harass Google. We provided concrete examples in the past and we are seeing it all the time. Google, unlike Microsoft, offers a solution that many people want to use and are rarely forced to use, so its brand has earned high reputation and the company’s estimated value is always the same as Microsoft’s (which declines rapidly [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]).
We wish to highlight yet another new example — courtesy of Wired Magazine — of Microsoft’s involvement in harassment of Google.
Who’s Messing With the Google Book Settlement? Hint: They’re in Redmond, Washington
[...]
The only obstacle remaining for the settlement to take effect is final court approval. Given a case of this scope, it’s not too surprising that a number of interested parties might lodge objections or ask for changes. Nor is it terribly surprising that at least one party nudging its way into the settlement is an internet-issues-oriented group from New York Law School.
But what does raise an eyebrow is the source of New York Law’s funding on this matter: Microsoft.
[...]
And, oh, by the way, he also discloses that the efforts of “the second oldest independent law school in the United States” is funded in part by Google’s main competitor, Microsoft.
The chief investigator of the New York Law School project is James Grimmelmann. In an earlier career phase, associate law professor Grimmelmann worked as a programmer for Microsoft.
This sure seems like another case of a lawsuit or harassment by proxy from Microsoft, which is jealous and fearful because its book-scanning (Google copying) project flopped last year. It soon got buried.
It is truly fascinating to see how Microsoft ‘competes’ with Google [1, 2]. Clearly, nothing has changed because Microsoft is too focused on crushing its competition rather than mind its own business and improve its products.
At the moment, Microsoft is also crushing Yahoo!, as it has been doing for just over a year so far. We wrote about a new Yahoo! defection some days ago and here is another:
Industry Moves: Another Yahoo Exec Jumps To Microsoft; At Least 10 Poached So Far
Another week, another search executive leaves Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) and joins Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT). Dayne Sampson, Yahoo’s vice president of operations for search and advertising, will join Microsoft’s Global Foundation Services Group, which deals with the backend of Microsoft’s online properties, including search, according to AllThingD.
Todd Bishop covered this too. █
More on the Yahoo! saga:
- Microsoft Fires Up Proxy War Against Yahoo as Debt Looms Over
- King of Hypocrisy(ahoo!)
- Microsoft Fight Against Yahoo Board Gets Uglier
- Microsoft’s Proxy Fight May Have Begun Weeks Ago, Quietly
- Microsoft’s Latest Ugly Tactics Against Google, Yahoo, and VMware
- As Yahoo Proxy War Looms, VMWare and Nokia Return to One’s Mind
- Microsoft Executives Penetrate Corel, Yahoo; Is Novell Next?
- What if Microsoft Owned Yahoo (and the US Government Establishments’ IT)?
- LawMedia Group May be Another Confirmed Microsoft AstroTurfing Agency
- Microsoft Executives Land Inside Microsoft Rivals
- Update on the Microsoft/Yahoo Situation: Google-Yahoo Alliance?
- Microsoft: 800 lb. Guerrilla
- Who’s Bugging Google and Apple? (Updatedx2)
- Video: Bloomberg on Yahoo/Google/Microsoft
- Eye on Microsoft: Windows Under Attack from Critics, Cyber Criminals; Yahoo! Besieged by Microsoft
- The Microsoft-Influenced US Regulators Wrong on Yahoo!
- Microsoft Hijacked Yahoo! from the Inside (Updated)
- Newly-Appointed Yahoo Puppet: Let Microsoft Have Us
