Google-Microsoft Smackdown

Honestly, where's the love? By now, Google and Microsoft have a long history of siccing the Justice Department's Antitrust Division on each other; Google worked to kill Microsoft's acquisition of Yahoo last year, and Microsoft did the same (much more successfully, we might add) when Google and Yahoo tried to set up a multibillion-dollar search ad deal. Now Google has struck again, this time in Europe.

Back in January, the European Union launched an antitrust case against Microsoft, accusing the company of stifling competition in the browser market by bundling Internet Explorer in its Windows package. (This, you may recall, was the substance of the Justice Department's historic antitrust action against Microsoft in 2000.) It's an odd time to bring this case, since Internet Explorer's share of the market has fallen from 80 percent in 2007 to 68 percent today. But that didn't stop Mozilla from joining the suit as a third-party complainant. Yesterday Google announced that it, too, was joining the action on behalf of its browser, Chrome, claiming that Microsoft's dominance has left the browser market uncompetitive, stifling innovation and restricting consumer choice. "More competition in this space will mean greater innovation on the web and a better user experience for people everywhere," wrote Google Vice President Sunday Pichai in a blog post.

If the European Union brings the hammer down on Microsoft, it could levy a serious fine against the company and even force it to bundle rival browsers on computers that use Windows. But as the New York Times reports, Google's real goal may be to get a hold of a secret "statement of objections" that the European Union sent Microsoft when the case began.

Because Google doesn't have much of a leg to stand on. Samuel Miller, who handled the Microsoft case for the Justice Department, told the Times that the browser market has grown considerably more competitive than it once was: "This new complaint is not necessary and actually seems like it is instigated to protect particular competitors rather than the competitive process."

And Google's complaint merely reminds everyone of its own anti-competitive practices, such as its astonishing 72 percent share of the search market. Look no further than the comments on Google's own blog in response to Pichai's announcement:

"Google should be careful not to pursue tactics that smack of hypocrisy, or someday it will have to suffer."