Google Joins EU Anti-Trust Case Against Microsoft Browser

Feb 25, 2009 at 2:34pm ET by Greg Sterling

Over the past couple of years Microsoft and Google have become increasingly intense (maybe even bitter) rivals. Most recently the two companies used Yahoo as something of a pawn their game. It may be somewhat unfair to all involved to characterize Yahoo as a “pawn.” But Microsoft tried to buy Yahoo primarily as a way to better compete against Google in search and online advertising. And Google offered Yahoo a paid search deal in part to help Yahoo develop a credible alternative to Microsoft’s offer and keep the property away from Redmond.

When the Microsoft offer/acquisition failed, it successfully moved to thwart Google’s efforts to extend its paid search reach to Yahoo and convince the government that Google was a search monopoly. Take that!

Now Google says it’s joining the EU anti-trust case against Microsoft tied to the IE browser:

[W]e believe that we can contribute to this debate. We learned a lot from launching our own Google Chrome browser last year and are hoping that Google’s perspective will be useful as the European Commission evaluates remedies to improve the user experience and offer consumers real choices. Of course creating a remedy that helps solve one problem without creating other unintended consequences isn’t easy – but the more voices there are in the conversation the greater the chances of success.

We don’t know how the Commission’s proceeding will evolve. But we are confident that more competition in this space will mean greater innovation on the web and a better user experience for people everywhere.

Interestingly, the author of the Google blog post is Sundar Pichai, Vice President Product Management, one of the team leads for Chrome. Google’s move to some degree reflects how important it considers Chrome and its adoption to be in the long term for the company. It’s also something of a “poke in the eye” to Microsoft.

The move is likely to add fuel to the fire in the contest between the two companies. Perhaps President Obama should appoint a special peace envoy to address the Google-Microsoft conflict?

About The Author: Greg Sterling is a Contributing Editor at Search Engine Land. He writes a personal blog Screenwerk, about SoLoMo issues and connecting the dots between online and offline. He also posts at Internet2Go, which is focused on the mobile Internet. Follow him @gsterling. See more articles by Greg Sterling

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Jeff

Google Chrome fell flat on it’s face not because IE is a monopoly, but because it’s just too different… Why does Google feel the need to come up with cute names like “minor tweaks,” “under the hood,” “google gears.”

Aside from the interface requiring some getting used to, default settings are just weird. Why is Web history browser is the default home page?