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Microsoft Spends Millions Attacking Google at Antitrust Level, Murdoch's Press Helps Microsoft

Lloyd Fester



Summary: Report about Microsoft's political games against Google

BURIED inside this long report from a general news site is the following bit about Microsoft's anti-Google lobbying. Some names are included which makes it worth quoting:

2. Microsoft Targets Google for Antitrust Probe

An alliance of tech firms and Washington lobbyists is calling for an antitrust investigation of Internet search giant Google — and Google says rival Microsoft is masterminding the campaign.

It could be called payback.

In the 1990s, Google CEO Eric Schmidt, then an executive at Sun Microsystems and later Novell, provided evidence in the government’s antitrust case against Microsoft.

The restrictions imposed on Microsoft as a result of the case helped Google rise to its current position atop the Web, and now “some of Microsoft’s allies are saying it’s time for the search giant to get its comeuppance,” Politico reported.

Pamela Jones Harbour, a former Federal Trade Commission member and now a consultant for Microsoft, asserts that Google has a monopoly.

“There are also increasing calls from some Silicon Valley competitors and Washington-based public interest groups for the Justice Department to launch a sweeping probe of Google,” according to Politico.

Google asserts that Microsoft — which is spending about $7 million a year on lobbying — is behind the anti-Google efforts.

“Microsoft and our large competitors have invested a lot in D.C. to stoke scrutiny of us,” Google spokesman Adam Kovacevich said. “But our goal is to make sure that we can continue creating cool new things for consumers.”

Microsoft attorney Charles “Rick” Rule wrote in a September Op-Ed piece for The Wall Street Journal that Google is a monopoly and should be investigated. And he noted, “What goes around, comes around.”

Google processes more than 1 billion search requests each day, and had revenue of $23.6 billion in 2009.


So the Wall Street Journal (Rupert Murdoch) now offers Microsoft a platform for anti-Google motions? Not surprising given Murdoch's relationship with Microsoft [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14].

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