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Microsoft's IE7 Search Box Bugs Google

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the now-wait-a-minute dept.

tessaiga writes "The New York Times reports that Google is crying foul over a new IE7 search box feature that defaults to MSN Search. Although the feature can be modified to use Google or other search engines, Google asserts that "The best way to handle the search box [...] would be to give users a choice when they first start up Internet Explorer 7." Google goes on to assert that the move "limits consumer choice and is reminiscent of the tactics that got Microsoft into antitrust trouble in the late 1990s". I notice that in my version of Firefox the search box defaults to Google, and that the pulldown menu of pre-entered options doesn't even include MSN Search, but Google seems to have been oddly quiet on that front for the many years prior to IE7 that Firefox has made this feature available."

7 of 803 comments (clear)

  1. Defaults vs. Presets by Kelson · · Score: 5, Informative

    The main difference between the IE7 search box and the Firefox and Opera search boxes is that the IE7 search box comes preloaded with only one search provider: MSN. Firefox and Opera both include a half-dozen or so providers when you install them. (You can add additional search engines in all three.)

    Well, that, and Firefox doesn't have a setting for a "default" provider. It "defaults" to the last one you used, which can be helpful if, say, you use Google most of the time and want to do a bunch of IMDB lookups in a row. (Yes, you can add IMDB as a search engine.) Of course, if you've never used the box before, it starts out with Google...

    Of course, you can always read what the IE team has to say about searching...

    1. Re:Defaults vs. Presets by kimvette · · Score: 4, Informative

      Hmm,

      I run Firefox 1.5.0.1 and MSN is indeed an available option. IIRC I did have to select "Add Engines" but it is most definitely in the list now, as is Dictionary, IMDB, and Wikipedia respectively.

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    2. Re:Defaults vs. Presets by tmasssey · · Score: 3, Informative
      I'll think about it for an hour. Still makes sense. Why? Microsoft is a monopoly. Monopolies cannot use their monopoly product (the OS, and according to MS, IE is part of the OS) to leverage other products.

      Now, this is not impossible to be gotten around. The entire reason why Windows XP was shipped one year after Windows 2000 is simple: Microsoft wanted to bundle Windows Messenger, and a new version of IE and Outlook Express with Windows 2000. But they couldn't. How do you get around that?

      Simple: make them an "inseparable" part of a "new" operating system. Voila! Windows XP.

      In any case, the spirit is obvious: MS should not be able to do this. The *leteter*, though, may be different...

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  2. Don't search!!!!! by grumpyman · · Score: 4, Informative
    "The best way to handle the search box [...] would be to give users a choice when they first start up Internet Explorer 7."

    OTOH, I would much prefer it DOES NOT search for anything. For example, if I type in stuff like 'wwwww.yahoo.com', that STUPID IE just search for it and with the address bar ending up modifed as "http://sea.search.msn.com/dnserror.aspx?FORM=DNSA S&q=wwwww.yahoo.com". Now I need to go delete those characters to modify the original URL!! Ernest

  3. Re:One other detail by man_of_mr_e · · Score: 5, Informative

    No, but one of the lead Mozilla developers, Ben Goodger, is a Google Employee.

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  4. Abuse of monopoly powers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative
    Microsoft could even pay them to do that. But Microsoft deploys IE7 and Microsoft makes money on MSN.

    That's not quite what the problem is either.

    The real problem is that it's illegal to abuse monopoly powers by using your (otherwise legal) monopoly in one industry to force users to adopt your inferior product in another industry.

    For a concrete example - if you have a monopoly in Operating Systems, you can NOT use your operating system monopoly to force users to use your online-store or your media-player or your single-sign-on-service. Google's arguing that you are also not allowed to force people to use your search engine either -- and that users are so unlikely to switch default browsers that making this the default in IE is effectively forcing the users.

    Firefox does not have this problem, because it is not illegally abusing any monopoly powers.

  5. Re:Care to support that accusation? by CableModemSniper · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://www.spamdailynews.com/publish/Mozilla_makin g_tens_of_millions_of_dollars_from_Firefox.asp

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