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Microsoft Behind Google Complaints To EC
justice4all writes to share that some of the recent complaints to the European Commission about Google have apparently been coming from Microsoft. "A lawyer for Microsoft confirmed that the software giant told the US Department of Justice and the European Commission how Google’s business practices may be harming publishers, advertisers and competition in search and online advertising. [...] 'Google’s algorithms learn less common search terms better than others because many more people are conducting searches on these terms on Google. These and other network effects make it hard for competing search engines to catch up. Microsoft’s well-received Bing search engine is addressing this challenge by offering innovations in areas that are less dependent on volume. But Bing needs to gain volume too, in order to increase the relevance of search results for less common search terms.'"
I see... Since it's a search engine, that much could be deduced from context. Could you perhaps provide an example of a search query that Google does substantially better than Bing?
Wow what a flame. Let's look at your points:
Google pays Mozilla and Canonical for making Google their default search engine choice.
Hmm. Why was it okay to tolerate the poor desktop experience of past Linux distributions to "stop Microsoft" and yet it's not okay to make a search engine to "stop Google"? Competition is always good for the consumer.
Now you're being irrational. There is no standard API for web searches to embrace and extend.
I see Google on almost every website I visit. Google is also the default search engine on both my Safari and Firefox browsers.
Offering value added services is not evil. There is nothing wrong with charging for highres sat images (hence the reason Google's free sat images isn't much better). The realtor probably paid for the service with the intention of offering it to its paid customers. Seems reasonable to me, and it doesn't prevent anyone else from offering highres sat images.
I'm sure the fact that Google signs your paycheck, may make using Bing hard to use too...
I'm not a big fan of Microsoft. I also don't believe our interests are being served by giving Google a free pass either.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
Boo-fuckin'-hoo.
Their complaint boils down to "It's not fair that Google is successful."
Again, boo-fuckin'-hoo. Make something useful and maybe people will use it. Heck, you don't even have to go that far! Windows, I am looking in your general direction.
unless of course maybe MSFT has a patent on that technique for windows mobile phones and google doesn't want to run afoul of it. Or maybe Google found out too many developers weren't playing by the rules laid out.
instead of whining why don't you find out why google pulled a feature. it is either because it was only popular for a small group, someone threatened them with a patent, or it was being abused.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Lies. If you had read the article, the complaint was that other search-type providers were finding their results lower in the ranking than they should be.
The comparison sites reportedly complained to the EC that Google’s search algorithm demotes their sites in searches as they compete with Google’s own services.
Microsoft can't prevent anybody from competing in the market either - they're always free to use Linux or any of the other dozen viable OS's or other less common OS's.
Google is the dominant search provider by a long shot. The argument is that they are abusing that monopoly to unfairly promote other services they provide. The same whiny argument used against Microsoft.
I actually don't think Google is a monopoly, but neither is Microsoft.
When MS pushed IE, you had little choice (since there was --for all practical purposes-- no valid competitor to the OS) about using IE. They forced it down your throats (Considering you can't uninstall it)...
You didn't have to use IE, and Microsoft did nothing to stop you from installing alternatives. Indeed, until IE was competitive (IE3) it was typically only used to download Navigator, then never loaded again. It wasn't until IE was superior (IE4+) that it really started taking market share away from Navigator.
I can use any search engine I like any time I like. I can switch search engines easier than can change toothpaste.
You can switch OSes trivially as well. Of course, the impact of doing so might be significant, but so is the impact of changing your search engine, if your new one doesn't deliver pertinent results.