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.
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2011-02-20 22:24:44
It is pathetic and dishonest of Microsoft to claim their attack is some kind of payback. Ballmer famously tossed a chair across the room and swore to kill Google back in 2005. It was clear to well informed observers that Microsoft hated Google, for helping to organize the web in a way that helped gnu/linux users and later for more direct competition in in email, office applications and finally operating systems. Bill Gate's myopic "Internet Tidal Wave" memo ruefully mentioned that it was easier to find information on the world wide web than it was on Microsoft's own internal network, so you can peg Microsoft's hatred of web search from before Google was founded and well before the first of many successful anti-trust investigations. You can also surmise as much from their war against "network computing" which they started in the early 90's. Microsoft's hatred of competitors is all about Microsoft needing to be the center of the computing universe to keep their margins up. Labeling the attack on Google as payback is obviously dishonest, just another smear on Google, and equally obviously a threat to everyone because just about everyone in the industry showed up a the anti-trust investigations to talk at length about Microsoft's repulsive business practices. It is also pathetic of them to need to dig up that kind of personalization excuse, "he hit me first!" cries the bully that's busy doing more nasty things.
Mark Howard of News Corpse points out the relationship between Murdoch and Google as well as some of the more absurd attacks some of their broadcast clowns have launched. Murdoch has sided with digital restrictions pushers Apple and Microsoft in his hypocritical attack on Google. It is no surprise to see Fox/WSJ owner doing this.