p2pnet - rss feed: Google wants Microsoft watched
p2pnet.net news:- Microsoft has already agreed to modify Windows Vista following a complaint by Google that Vista’s search function could put rival companies at a disadvantage.
But that’s not enough, says Google. It now wants Microsoft monitored via a federal order to extend a consent decree that settled the 2002 landmark anti-trust case against Microsoft.
“Given Microsoft’s history of aggressively minimizing the impact of court-ordered relief, it is appropriate for the Court to use its authority to extend” the consent decree, Google said in a friend-of-the-court brief filed in U.S. District Court in Washington,” says the Washington Post.
Google has for some time been complaining that Microsoft’s Instant Search program impedes third-party desktop search applications, also claiming Bill and the Boyz make it hard for PC users to choose alternatives.
Google’s assertions are, “meant to show that Microsoft was not complying with the antitrust settlement, reached in 2002 after the government concluded that Microsoft used its near-ubiquitous Windows operating system to suppress competition,” says the Associated Press. “Microsoft is now bound by a consent decree that requires it to help rivals build software that runs smoothly in Windows.
“In a report published last week, the Justice Department and Microsoft detailed a compromise response to Google’s complaints that would let Vista users set a non-Microsoft program as the default desktop search engine.”
David C. Drummond, Google senior vbp and chief legal officer, is playing the hackneyed consumer card.
Users will, “likely need further measures to ensure meaningful choice,” he says, according to the Washington Post. “Ultimately, these issues raise the need for continued judicial oversight of Microsoft’s practices, to ensure that consumers’ interests are best served.”
Also See:
Washington Post - Extended Monitoring Sought for Microsoft, June 26, 2007
Associated Press - Google Seeks Ruling on Microsoft Oversight, June 26, 2007
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