Shoe, is saying, now officially on the other foot.
A move that showed how much has the competitive landscape moved over the last decade, Microsoft (MSFT) filed a formal complaint with the EU Commission over what it sees as anti-competitive tactics used by Google (GOOG).
Microsoft still reeling from its own anti-trust settlement in the EU just two years ago. The ten year long struggle ended with Microsoft creates a browser ballot in its Windows operating system and to pay almost $ 2 .5b in fines.
"The company was the 800-pound gorilla now resort to antitrust, where is it always so that the results match the winners," says Michael a. Cusumano, professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management who has studied Microsoft to the NYTimes.
Until now, Microsoft fought Google by proxy in the EU and the United States by including subsidiaries and partners to file anti-trust action against his rival.
The complaint is that Google is using its market leading position in the Search for blocking competitors (such as Microsoft) from entering search and other related areas. Microsoft breaks down these six examples:
2006 Acquired first Google YouTube – and then there has been a growing number of technical measures to restrict competing search engines properly access to it from their search results. Without proper access to YouTube units and other search engines, Bing cannot stand with Google on an equal footing in return search results with links to YouTube videos and the more users from competitors and to Google.
Second, 2010 and more recently blocked Google Microsoft's new Windows phones from functioning correctly with YouTube. Google has made its own Android phones to access YouTube so that users can search for video categories, find your Favorites, see ratings, and so on of the rich user interface offered by these phones. It has done the same for the iPhone, which is offered by Apple, which does not offer a competing search service.
Google has unfortunately refused to allow Microsoft's new Windows phones to this YouTube metadata in the same way as the Android phones and iPhone do. Microsoft's YouTube "app" on Windows phones, therefore, is basically just a browser displays YouTube's mobile site, but the rich functionality offered on rival handsets. Microsoft is ready to release a high quality YouTube app for Windows phone. We only have access to YouTube in the same way as other phones already doing, is authorized Google refused to provide.
Thirdly, Google is trying to block access to content owned by book publishers. This was emphasised in Federal Court in New York last week in the decision include Google's effort to get exclusive and unfettered access to the large amount of so-called "orphan works" — books for no copyright holder can be easily found. According to Google's plan would only its search engine to return search results from these books. As the Federal Court said the rejection of this plan, "Google's ability to deny competitors the opportunity to seek further consolidate Google's stray books market power in the online search market." This is an important first step, according to u.s. law, but it must be strengthened through similar positions in Europe and the rest of the world.
Fourthly, Google also restricts its customers – namely the advertisers ' – access to their own data. Advertisers in large amounts of data in the Google ad servers manage their advertising campaigns. The information belongs to advertisers: it reflects their decisions about their own activities. But Google are prohibited by contract advertisers from using their data in an interoperable manner with other search advertising platforms, such as Microsoft's adCenter.
This makes it much more costly for Google's advertisers to run parts of their campaigns by any competitor, and therefore less likely that they will do so. It is a huge problem because most advertisers figure that they have to market first with Google. If it is too expensive to port advertising campaign data to competing advertising platforms, not many. Competing search engines are left with less relevant ads and less revenue. And this restraint is not visible for the consumers, its effects still felt on the net. Advertising revenue is the financial fuel fueling billion dollars needed for ongoing search investments. By reducing competitors ' ability to attract advertising revenue, beats this limitation in the center of a competitive market.
Fifth reflected the erosion of competitiveness in matters that go beyond Google's control over the content. One way that search engines attract users is through the distribution of search boxes to websites. Unfortunately, blocking Google contractual leading websites in Europe distributes competing search boxes. It is obviously hard for competing search engines to get users when almost all of the search box is powered by Google. Google's exclusivity terms has also blocked Microsoft distribute its Windows Live services, such as e-mail, and online document storage, by the European telecommunications firms because these services are monetized through Bing search boxes.
Finally, we share the concerns expressed by many others who Google discriminates against potential competitors by making it more expensive for them to achieve prominent placement for their ads. Microsoft has provided the Commission with a significant amount of peer review on how the search engine algorithms work and competitive importance to promote or demote various ads.
Google has not formally responded to the charges that just says it had not done anything wrong. Google also face antitrust concerns in the United States, most recently with the Texas Attorney General, and of acquisition proposed ITA.
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