Microsoft Files EU Competition Complaint Against Google 205
bLanark writes "In an amazing about-turn, the bully has turned into the bullied. Microsoft, having been on the receiving end of many anti-competition lawsuits, has filed a complaint with the European Commission, saying that Google is using its market dominance to prevent Microsoft from gaining market share."
What's the matter Microsoft... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Bing (Score:4, Informative)
What about Google's test where they created false search results for random strings of words, then saw the same first results come up in Bing? There's no algorithm there.
Re:So they said ... (Score:4, Informative)
Woops, I meant to include a link to this blog post [technet.com] at Microsoft that explains it in more detail. It seems Youtube isn't all that they're complaining about.
They're claiming Google is trying to gain exclusive rights to out-of-print books, which prevents Bing and others from searching the content. I seem to recall the latest Books proposal involved non-exclusive rights, so I guess someone didn't get the memo.
And finally they've got a beef with Google Ads. On the advertiser side, Google isn't allowing advertisers to share any data gleamed from Ads with anyone non-Google. On the user side, Google is disallowing competing search bars from being embedded on websites that display Google Ads. Microsoft wants to get its Bing search bar out there, and Google is making it tough.
Re:Bing (Score:4, Informative)
The results was EXACTLY the same, not similar. The fact that they pertained made up search terms that would never had been indexed by either Google or Bing normally cemented the fact that it was wholesale stolen results directly from Google Search.
Re:Almost makes you want to feel pity for Microsof (Score:4, Informative)
He did. "Mein Kampf" is basically one long diatribe about how Jews were trying to destroy Germans, and how Germany's areas had been forcibly taken and annexed to other countries. The last part was actually true, which is part of how Hitler managed to get power.
All of which, BTW, makes an excellent answer to anyone who says "world is not fair, deal with it": the more unfair the world is, the easier it is for the next Hitler/Stalin/Mao to get into power and start World War 3. So go ahead, cut those unemployment benefits and social security, if you feel lucky. Well, do ya, punk?
Re:Bing (Score:4, Informative)
The toolbar reported home that people were searching for a certain string and this was added to the search results.
The toolbar reported home the Google search results that people clicked on when searching for a certain string and this was added to the search results.
How is that not "Bing is copying Google search results"? I don't think you win much by saying that they only copy the results people click on.