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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.
Why are they bothering trying to change the wreckage that is Vista, instead of releasing their own OS? Frankly at this rate I'm surprised GoogleOS hasn't already been announced.
They had better. The consent decree expires in November. If that means what I think it means, Vista is going to suck life more obviously than it already does. It's like they've ignored the consent decree, even while it's in effect. Normal people are unable to think of what M$ will do next.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
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...
It's "Don't be Evil." Doing evil and being evil are subjectively different IMO.
So is using your large companies power for the greater good doing (or being) evil?
I don't really think so...
Money is the root of all evil?
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"
This is a marketing tactic. Google knows that many people will respect this move.
;-) And, no, I don't like it, either.
But it brings into focus a new corporate strategy... the use of regulation over competition. Asking for regulation is against the traditional American business philosophy, which typically favours deregulation.
This could play out in favour of Microsoft who will likely ask that Google get regulated more heavily, which will result in some interesting news for the world, to come. And yes, I know something you don't.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Looks like we have some Microsoft moderators today. It is not unreasonable for Google to go over the heads of opposing counsel and address the court directly. The only "political maneuver interesting" here is that the DOJ would choose to represent the plaintiff and the defendant in the same case. It sounds suspiciously like a conflict of interest in the Department of Justice.
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.
I'm a little out of the loop, but I just read through the final [amended] consent decree against Microsoft on the DOJ website. Can someone in the know point out what clause Google is claiming is being violated? I haven't seen it directly mentioned in any story posted yet.
I mean, the main problems addressed in the consent decree were twofold: 1) Microsoft was illegally leveraging OEMs for positioning, and 2) Microsoft was illegally leveraging it's "Middleware" market by including standalone products (such as Internet Explorer, Outlook Express, etc) in its Windows OS.
What's Google's ground, legally, for their complaint? According to the consent decree, the term "Middleware" was defined, basically, as either "IE, Java, Media Player, Messenger, Outlook Express" or "browsers, email clients, networked audio/video software, instant messaging software" or "any functionality provided by Microsoft software that is distributed separately within a year preceding a new commercial Windows release which is similar to a non-Microsoft middleware product".
That being the case, did Microsoft ever release the Instant Search option as a separate download from any Windows OS? I can't think of any time they ever did that to my recollection. In fact, as someone else pointed out, searching is not only integral to the file systems of an OS, but it's been included in Windows from quite a ways back (if not as efficiently as it currently is implemented in Vista.)
Just curious....
LondovirLondovir
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).
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.
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?
What does any of this have to do with My Rights Online? As between Google and Microsoft, and which outfit gains a couple of points of market share as opposed to the other, I care about as much as I care about Darfur or Paris Hilton.
Google couldn't possibly have done anything evil or it would cease being Google.
For proof, just google "Don't be evil" and "I read it on the internet so it must be true".
Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarcasm
+++
As a user of multiple OS's (XP, Vista and various *nix) I'm quite happy with Vista. Removed it within 24hrs for Ubuntu before factory restoring my system as I couldn't get all my new shiny hardware to work with Linux (ok, Linux fanboys... I could have tried harder but I was in my last month of University and needed a system that worked now. First time Linux has let me down though).
;-) ). Why are Microsoft getting slapped for improving part of their product and improving its prominence in line with user demand? If market research didn't show users wanted a search feature, MS wouldn't have implemented it and Google wouldn't care.
/. so any pro/non-anti MS posts are against the law so, let the flames commence...
This gave me the opportunity to give Vista a try out before a reinstall of Linux, which now isn't going to happen without some changes (more targetted exploits for example). Only mistake I think MS made with Vista was to allow the new security features (UAC etc.) to be turned off by the user (leaving the 'pretty XP' arguement people keep making), although I've got to ask: wtf is up with the 'show text' option for password fields? sheer madness....
With regard to search, unless I'm mistaken Windows has had a search feature since forever (win3.1 I think, possibly earlier I'm not that old
In regards to the fairness arguement, why should MS have to give fair access to THEIR software to a competitor?
Now I know this is
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.