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Google Calls For More Limits On Microsoft
teh_commodore writes "Scientific American is reporting that Google is now asking a Federal judge to extend the government's anti-trust oversight of Microsoft, specifically with regard to desktop search software. Microsoft had already agreed to modify Vista to allow rival desktop search engines, but Google says that this remedy will come too late — specifically, after (most of) the anti-trust agreement expires in November. What makes this political maneuver interesting is that Google went over the heads of the Department of Justice and US state regulators, who had found Microsoft's compromise acceptable, to appeal directly to the Federal judge overseeing the anti-trust settlement." Update: 06/26 17:20 GMT by KD : The judge is unwilling to play along with Google; she said she will likely defer to an agreement on desktop search forged between Microsoft and the plaintiffs in the case: i.e. Justice and the states.
Im afraid with Google, we may be jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire. I hate MS as much as the next guy (Linux user for quite a while now), but would Google really be any better as the 800 lb gorilla on the block? Oh, well, chalk it up to paranoia, but I really would hate to see one evil overlord replaced by another.
I know, Google is big and scary now as well, but I am pretty happy to see a new 300 pound gorilla in the room standing up to Microsoft.
The world is better with the dominant operating system open for competition. A court understood this once ( http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/f3800/msjudgex.htm ), but clearly the DOJ is not going to enforce it without Google (and others with the wherewithal to do so) being vocal about it.
I have to agree with the first poster. Google scares the hell out of me, and I use their webmail and search every day. They're not as "obvious" a target as Microsoft since they're not (at present) an OS vendor, which may mean that, should they choose to do more evil, they won't be as visible. And Google doesn't work on OSes, it works on *data.* Huge, collected masses of data that would be any social-engineering data miner's wet dream.
Put another way, they traffic in information. An OS is, when you get right down to it, nothing but information, and there are alternatives to Windows. What will happen when/if there becomes no alternative to Google for web searches?
~Eien no Inori wo Sasagete~ Searching for my Hatsumi...
I believe we're invoking the age-old D-The-Ends-Justify-The-Means argument, which of course means we're destined to spiral way off-topic.
So let's to it.
IMHO, the ends don't always justify the means. I lost a lot of respect for Novell, and for Xandros, when they made deals with Microsoft. I feel that, no matter what good could be gained from it, that these things upheld the philosophical underpinnings of the OSS community. Even if GPLv3 gets twisted in such a way that MS gets bent over a barrel and has to release their code, that won't be good. It will have been sneaky and underhanded, and we would be just as bad as them.
In much the same way, if Google resorts to the same power-brokering that Microsoft does, they will be doing evil. Doing evil is what makes one be evil. (Sorry for getting it wrong earlier, btw)
This could quickly become a PR nightmare for Google if they get painted in the wrong light, and for something that I see as trivial. Google is one of those companies, like Apple, where looking cool is important to their image, and their market base. Why risk it?
--"insert clever quote here"
I think this is a good change, but does Google really have the high ground here? They are using an extremely dominant product to market their other products. They use their search engine to push everything from google maps to gmail.
As an example can mapquest come along and demand that when a user searches for a street in google that their map be displayed prominantly as the first search item instead of google maps? This has a huge impact in the online maps business. Google has used a dominant product to gain a massive advantage in a new area. Not entirely unlike what the boys from Redmond like to do. Im not saying its evil, but it does seem kind of like a bully who starts crying when a bigger bully comes along.
Windows is MS OS, I don't like it and don't use it, however it is *their* OS, not Google's not the consumer's not the regulators'. Using antitrust to attack competition destroys value, it's *evil*. Same goes for AMD: they lost technological ground, they switch to outsourcing their development to get cheaper products instead of investing in research and their desperate move is what: antitrust lawsuit against Intel. Shame shame on them all.
\u262D = \u5350
Google, c'mon. Nobody likes a billion-dollar cry-baby. Take Paris Hilton, for example. (Mom!!!?!)
It appears to me that Google is really stretching the definition of its "don't be evil" mission by playing the "pull" card and trying to get an already over-reaching government to bitchslap Microsoft on their behalf. Ayn Rand, call your office.
Google, if you've given up on trying to make it on your ability and have decided instead to play the looter's game, please issue a press release to that effect so that I can be properly and officially disappointed in you, and switch my IE and Mozilla over to MS Live search just for spite.
Ed R.Zahurak
You know, oblivion keeps looking better every day.
How are you locked into using Microsoft software? You could format your PCs and switch to Ubuntu Linux. On the server side of things, Redhat isn't struggling either. However patents ARE a huge threat to competition and ARE a monopolistic anti-competitive method to kill competition. This is a true example of how one competitor can kill their competition, gaining a monopoly share of the market in the process.
And how many websites now rely on Google Maps, Google Search or other features for the site to work correctly? These Google features are good enough that competitors offerings are not used by anyone, so I guess you could say that Google is taking everyone into their system (killing competitors) before charging for the service? Or with Google Mail, what if they locked you out from accessing your email because they change to a "pay-for-email" service?
IMO this isn't a problem, as competitors CAN exist alongside Google given that it doesn't take much time and effort to create an alternative to whatever proprietary systems Microsoft/Google can come up with. Silverlight took 21 days to port to Linux. Building a new open source Google search engine wouldn't be all that difficult either.
With patents, competitors CAN'T exist alongside Google/Microsoft. Everyone is locked into using Google/Microsoft because these companies have a legal right to a monopoly on their "inventions" and can charge ridiculous/non-viable amounts for patent licensing (hence blocking all competition).
I can switch from Google by typing "www.yahoo.com" in my address bar. I can switch from Microsoft by getting my company to get a system to replace Exchange calendars and mail, reinstall most computers with a new operating system, set up a new network, new system to replace Sharepoint, replace all of our company standard documents, office applications, etc. The barrier to switch from Microsoft is MUCH higher, so their onus as a Monopoly to be interoperable is much higher than it would be with Google. Google only keeps it's "monopoly" by being good at what it does, rather than locking in their customers and making the barriers to switch impossibly high.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
Which company in their right mind would stop demanding random stuff from their competition that benefits them. Especially if it seems to work. None.
And in this light, the fact Google is never happy, they're just maximizing their luck with the entire "Microsoft locked Windows down" inertia.
I just see how many of your are trying to read into this "if Google does it, then it's the right thing for everyone". No, you idiots. It's the right thing for Google. It's completely irrelevant if it's the right thing for everyone.
Of course, the ones who go by-by are the ones who moderate the exesses you're trolling about -- so expect the world to get crappier if the Dispensationists are right and there is a Rapture before the end time.
First, let me say that I'm evil. I'm a corporate code tool for Microsoft, because they pay me money to play with lots and lots of their servers. Flame away, I've heard it all before.
I always find the reaction to stories like this one interesting... I know all about what my camp thinks and how we see these issues. I wasn't present for the netscape/IE thing, and during school I was a pretty serious linux user for four or five years (as a freshman, the ability to play half life was more important). I use Firefox because IE7 still sucks. Google search was my home page for a long time, and frankly their search still does a great job... it's not what I use every day, but it is where I go when Live is being slow or I want to get a different view of the same search.
For me, if I go out and pay an arm and a leg for Vista (don't like the pricing, but they don't ask me about these things), it should be great out of the box, and it should have all the basics (a browser to get online, a file system I can use to store and browse, the ability to play a CD, etc). I'm not paying for a skeleton system that's only done enough to let me DIY the rest... when it's finished installing, I should be able to reasonably use my computer right away. It's like buying a new car... I should be able to drive it off the lot, not need to go buy tires that aren't included (because I might develop a bias towards those tires?). For the average users out there (ahem, my computer hating mom), who want their computer for every day, uncomplicated tasks, it's even more important that it just works.
So in a nutshell, I guess what I see day to day is that if there are features a user will reasonably expect out of the product, and we have time and budget, shouldn't we build them in? It seems more evil to me to leave them out.
MS does have to play by difference rules, of course, because we're all evil, money hording devil worshipers who eat babies (delicious with a nice cayenne hot sauce), etc, etc. But I'm really curious for you on the outside world, do you design your products with defenses against users becoming biased toward them? Or were you us, and it's your product that people say is unfair, how would you balance "justice" with usability? Especially for something as basic-functionality as searching a file system? If it becomes jammed with ad-supported semi-functional competing products (by which I mean parties other than, and less scrupulous and skilled than Google), because competitors need the right to install random crazy software that will run under the name of your-product-name-here, did you make a good choice?
Google isn't the evil company that we know Microsoft as. Google focusing on the development of a great search engine, instead of taking the money and selling out for media development(Yahoo), is why they have grown to such heights. The fact that a fresh and legit force is now bossing evil Microsoft around, is quite refreshing for the tech world, and should be applauded instead of demeaned.
Google is *not* a search engine company. Google does not develop the search engine to make access to information more efficient and make the world a better place. Google develops the search engine to profile its users so that they can be a provider of targeted advertising. Google *is* in the targeted advertising business. A search engine is just one method of profiling you to determine your needs and wants. The same for gmail. Now some out there mistakenly believe that the advertising is simply what is shown next to your searches, no, it is far more than that. Google helps websites determine which ads to show you on their site. What is being fought over between Microsoft and Google is who will websites turn to in order to purchase targeted ad info.