
Microsoft files monopoly complaint against Google - sunsai
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03/31/microsoft_google_monopoly/
======
jameskilton
Full complaint:
[http://blogs.technet.com/b/microsoft_on_the_issues/archive/2...](http://blogs.technet.com/b/microsoft_on_the_issues/archive/2011/03/30/adding-
our-voice-to-concerns-about-search-in-europe.aspx)

There may be some legitimate claims here -- plenty of mention of where the DOJ
has already stopped some anti-competitive behaviour from Google -- but overall
it just screams "Google is KILLING us, we can't compete, so obviously there's
a monopoly here, so lets legislate instead of innovate."

~~~
rick888
Funny how the tune has changed. If this was Microsoft 10+ years ago, everyone
would scream Monopoly and want the problem legislated away. Now that it
involves Google, a "cool" company that can "do no harm", it's fine.

~~~
jameskilton
Well first of all it's "Do No Evil", and frankly I don't think you can compare
the two. Where Microsoft 10 years ago did everything they could to _force_ you
to use their products (bundling the browser, exclusivity with all consumer
computer OEMs, etc), Google has made really good products that people _want_
to use. I'm not forced to use Gmail, or Google Talk, or Documents, but I
choose to because it's the best out there.

I'm not saying Google isn't Evil, there's definitely some questionable things
they've done as of late, but to try to compare them now to when MS was at its
"evil" peak is disingenuous. Google built things people want to use. Microsoft
built things so that you had to use them.

~~~
kenjackson
Google Talk and Documents aren't very good, but I'll give you GMail.

But in any case, the issue with Google is that we're the product and the
advertisers are the customer. Google's ad product probably is worse than any
comparable MS product I can recall -- at least from the perspective of the
customer.

And lets be clear, MS never built something you had to use, any more than you
have to use Google's ad product. You use them both because they are dominant
in their industry. But for both, there was a time when they weren't the most
dominant. People made a choice to use their products.

The thing that almost makes Microsoft a more sympathetic monopoly is that
their monopoly was to the customers that used the product. So if you want to
end their monopoloy in Windows, stop using the product and use something else.
If enough people do that, the monopoly ceases.

Google's monopoly is indirect. As an advertiser, even if I move to another ad
platform -- if my product doesn't move (the people searching with Google
search), I'm still screwed. An uprising by the customer can't change the
monopoly -- they need to get to the product.

(Note, there are technically different names for these two different forms of
industry domination, but its not uncommon to refer to them under the same name
-- anti-competitive behaviors can apply to either).

~~~
nkassis
Wow, I mean, I'm young but I do remember the late 90s where every document had
to be in .doc format (last I checked it's still pretty mendatory) or else no
one could open it and Microsoft did everything they could to prevent other
from reimplementing that format. Or how microsoft took a protocol like netbios
and then smb and made it so that no one could interface with their network
protocols without some crazy reverse engineering (thank you Tridge). Or how IE
took over and slowly started adding incompatible stuff (look at activex and
jscript as a good example) to make it impossible to work without, I still find
apps that require IE6 to function. What about their attempt to re implement
java and make it incompatible.

... the list goes on but show me a similar list from Google.

~~~
kenjackson
_I do remember the late 90s where every document had to be in .doc format_

How did this happen? Was Bill Gates president and make that the law? There's
no way you could use WordPerfect? That was illegal? Oh, WordPerfect start
sucking in the 90s didn't it, so you stopped using it like I did? But that
didn't have anything to do with it, did it?

Try transfering your ad campaign from Google to Bing? It is incredibly poor
fidelity. Support for the .doc format in 1997 was better than the support you
get porting your ad campaign.

I'd like to have other search providers use my gmail email data. How do I do
that? Oh, it's not supported? I thought it was my email? As an advertiser can
I decent placement support or clickfraud data? No. OK, I'll just go to another
search ad provider -- oh wait, you're the only game in town. I'll play by your
rules.

~~~
Natsu
> How did this happen? Was Bill Gates president and make that the law?

He used product tying and manipulated vendors into anti-competitive agreements
such that they would either use what Microsoft wanted them to use exclusively
or they wouldn't be able to offer it at all.

As for how they got the initial traction, they managed to get bundled with the
IBM PC. IBM back in the day used exactly the same sort of tactics ("Nobody
ever got fired for using IBM" & they invented FUD), though they've reformed
quite a bit since then.

WordPerfect, Borland's compilers, etc. were widely considered the best back in
the day, so I don't think it was primarily the strength of Microsoft's
products which made people use them.

~~~
kenjackson
_WordPerfect, Borland's compilers, etc. were widely considered the best back
in the day, so I don't think it was primarily the strength of Microsoft's
products which made people use them._

My recollection of this is a fair bit different. WP seriously began to lag
Word in the 90s. While WP wss the undisputed king in MSDOS, on Windows it was
buggy and late. Office 95 in particular was pretty crushing.

Borland was somewhat similar. They had a good set of dev tools, and for
example, their C++ compiler was blindingly fast and the VCL was relatively
clean (at least compared to MFC). But around VC 4.0 that began to change (at
least build speed). VC started to beat Borland in build time and seemed to
spread its lead in code quality. This coupled with a better IDE made is Visual
C++ become the more common choice. Although I also think the strength of VB
played a large role in the uptake in VC. No data to back it up, but
anecdotcally I saw a lot of ISV shops bring VC along, because they were
building a lot of internal tools with VB (and no one really had anything to
compete with VB).

And lets be clear... VC was never shipped as part of Windows nor any bundling
of VC with OEMs. So there's no monopoly ties that help push your case that VC
became dominant through some monopoly manipulation.

~~~
Natsu
> on Windows it was buggy and late.

There are emails that say that that was due to being deliberately hampered on
Bill Gate's orders, unless I'm confusing them for one of the _other_ companies
he did that sort of thing to. I think someone else linked to that already.

> And lets be clear... VC was never shipped as part of Windows nor any
> bundling of VC with OEMs. So there's no monopoly ties that help push your
> case that VC became dominant through some monopoly manipulation.

They also had access to Windows internals and such, but I will grant that they
made a good product too.

------
cryptoz
> Secondly he accused Google of blocking Windows Mobile phones from working
> properly with YouTube.

Hah! I'd love to hear more details about this. Isn't it up to Microsoft to add
fucking HTML5 or Flash support to their phones? How is Google doing anything
but providing videos and Microsoft refusing to write code that reads those
videos?

This is the dumbest complaint ever, unless there are some details we're
missing...I'm curious. This is just too much, it can't be real.

~~~
recoiledsnake
This is from their blog:

First, in 2006 Google acquired YouTube—and since then it has put in place a
growing number of technical measures to restrict competing search engines from
properly accessing it for their search results. Without proper access to
YouTube, Bing and other search engines cannot stand with Google on an equal
footing in returning search results with links to YouTube videos and that, of
course, drives more users away from competitors and to Google.

Second, in 2010 and again more recently, Google blocked Microsoft’s new
Windows Phones from operating properly with YouTube. Google has enabled its
own Android phones to access YouTube so that users can search for video
categories, find favorites, see ratings, and so forth in the rich user
interfaces offered by those phones. It’s done the same thing for the iPhones
offered by Apple, which doesn’t offer a competing search service.

Unfortunately, Google has refused to allow Microsoft’s new Windows Phones to
access this YouTube metadata in the same way that Android phones and iPhones
do. As a result, Microsoft’s YouTube “app” on Windows Phones is basically just
a browser displaying YouTube’s mobile Web site, without the rich functionality
offered on competing phones. Microsoft is ready to release a high quality
YouTube app for Windows Phone. We just need permission to access YouTube in
the way that other phones already do, permission Google has refused to
provide.

------
kbutler
I've long been against Microsoft's practices, but from what I can tell, they
are clearly in the right on this: Google is using it's market power to
restrict competition in various ways.

This anti-competitive behavior should be stopped, regardless of the irony.

It doesn't matter if it's Google, Microsoft, Apple, the NFL, AT&T, IBM, U.S.
sugar producers, or a company you haven't heard of yet - if one or more
companies are leveraging market power to enter new markets or limit
competition in their market, they should be stopped.

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loudmax
Good thing typical small businesses don't rely on software and documents that
can only be rendered correctly by Microsoft products anymore. Cuz if that were
the case, this suit would be extreme hypocrisy.

Sarcasm aside, this doesn't necessarily invalidate the premises of the
argument. Even so, I don't see that current Google offerings have anywhere
near the lock-in of Microsoft products.

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rbarooah
The complaint is that Google has a conflict of interest as it becomes a
content provider as well as a search engine, and that it is exploiting this.

For other content providers, more search engines indexing their stuff, means
more traffic. There is only upside to letting more search engines in.

For Google, hobbling other search engines indexing their content is a great
way to keep their search engine on top. It's a virtuous circle for them.

In a way it's hard to see how they _aren't_ privileging Google search in some
way. Does Google Search use a public API to scrape YouTube, or is there some
backend integration? If there's integration, doesn't that support Microsoft's
claim?

------
jjcm
It seems like there's a lot of people commenting here who haven't read the
article in full. Some key points of it are that Microsoft isn't filing against
Google Search - rather they are complaining that Google is providing meta data
to other companies (apple) and are crippling Microsoft's access to it. As a
result, Microsoft's Windows Phone and other devices can't build an integrated
youtube app on their phone. They claim that Google is doing this because
Microsoft is a search competitor.

In addition, they are filing numerous complaints against Google's ad networks,
and their attempt to have unfettered and exclusive access to orphaned books.

Right now, it seems like Microsoft may have a leg to stand on in regards to
the youtube metadata control. I'll await google's response to this though
before I choose sides, and I'd recommend others wait as well.

------
wdr1
I just saw a TV ad for a Windows 7 phone last night that heavily touted
integration with Xbox Live.

Much in the spirit of Bing & Youtube, I wonder if other mobile devices will be
able to integrate just as easily w/ Xbox Live?

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tobylane
Is it really that hard to parse Youtube? These are the guys who made an
operat..

I can't say it. I can't say Microsoft actually ever made an operating system.
The one thing I've noticed with them is that they offer good download speeds.
To get all the patches quicker.

------
jleyank
Pot. Kettle. Black.

~~~
extension
Is it hypocritical to ask that their competitors be held to the same rules
that they had to pay €1.35B for breaking?

~~~
Natsu
It is if they have no good evidence of wrongdoing.

------
quattrofan
Maybe Brad could tell me why I can't install IE9 on my Windows XP netbook and
need to upgrade to Win7? I thought the OS had been decoupled due to
Microsoft's OS monopoly. Perhaps I should ask Google.

~~~
skrish
That is a good one. May be all XP users should file complaint against MS for
giving software that is NOT backward compatible and ask for free upgrade to
whatever platform that supports their latest and greatest upgrades.

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Ainab
I bet Google will allow access to even their search index if Microsoft starts
blocking all their applications in OS level.

------
yanw
That's obviously an April fool's hoax.

I mean Microsoft is bigger and richer than Google, they practically own the
desktop OS and enterprise software markets, they won't accuse anyone of anti-
trust because they aren't dominating search as well, would they?!

------
rouli
April fools came early this year?

------
gavanwoolery
In other news, Pot calls Kettle "black." More at 11.

------
latch
I heard Microsoft is going to reimburse its engineers who decide to pursue a
law degree as it aligns with their internal strategy to have more lawyers than
coders by 2015.

------
wheaties
Give me a break, if I want to go search I have any choice I want. There is
nothing stopping me from using Google, Bing, Yahoo, Duck Duck Go or any other
service. That's the beauty of the web, it's open.

~~~
dhimes
You should read the article. That's not what they are complaining about- in
fact, they acknowledge this directly.

EDIT relevant snippet:

 _On PCs it is usually not difficult for people to navigate to any search
engine. Google in fact makes this point virtually every time someone raises
antitrust concerns about their practices. Their defense ignores the hugely
important fact that there are many other important ways that search services
compete. Search engines compete to index the Web as fully as possible so they
can generate good search results, they compete to gain advertisers (the source
of revenue in this business), and they compete to gain distribution of their
search boxes through Web sites. Consumers will not benefit from clicking to
alternative sites unless all search engines have a fair opportunity to compete
in each of these areas_.

~~~
bad_user
TL;DR -- Advertisers/websites want users, Google has users, and we don't know
how the fuck to compete with that other than playing dirty.

Oh Microsoft, how I'd like for you to become even more irrelevant than you
already are.

~~~
rbarooah
DR is correct.

The actual accusation is that YouTube only allows Google to properly index
their videos, giving Google Search an unfair advantage.

Consumers won't switch to a search engine that can't index everything they
want, and Bing can't index YouTube properly if Google won't let them.

