Microsoft files case against Google in European Commission

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Microsoft files case against Google in European CommissioniTechWhiz (April 01, 2011) - Microsoft joined a complaint filed against Google by Ciao.de, Ejustice.fr and Foundem in European Commission. Ciao.de is German price comparison subsidiary of Microsoft. Foundem is an independent British price comparison firm. While Ejustice.fr is a French legal search service. Their joined complaints allege that Google in order to create its monopoly, abuses its dominance them by promoting its own competing services via its main search engine, which is against the market regulation enforced by European Commission.

In one of his detailed blog post, Brad Smith, the cheif of Microsoft Legal Force, accused Google of a series of anti-competitive actions. According to him:
Our filing today focuses on a pattern of actions that Google has taken to entrench its dominance in the markets for online search and search advertising to the detriment of European consumers.
He claimed Google (which carries out more than 90 per cent of web searches in Europe) unfairly restricts how Microsoft’s competing Bing search engine and Windows smartphones can access YouTube, and that it is trying to monopolise access to out-of-copyright books via search.

Mr Smith also alleged Google makes it hard for advertisers to do business with competing search engines by restricting their access to their own data, and finally that it undermines competition by insisting third party websites use its search system exclusively.

In reply to the allegation leveled by Microsoft, there was a brief public response from Google:
We are not surprised that Microsoft has done this, since one of their subsidiaries was one of the original complainants. For our part, we continue to discuss the case with the European Commission and we are happy to explain to anyone how our business works.
European anti-trust officials could impose a fine of up to 10 per cent of Google's annual profits, as well as potentially requiring it to restructure its business.

Microsoft itself was the target of the Europe’s most famous anti-trust investigation, over the way it bundled its own applications with the Windows operating system. In 2008, after years of legal wrangling, it was fined almost $1.5bn for non-compliance with earlier rulings. As Mr. Smith has indicated:
Having spent more than a decade wearing the shoe on the other foot with the European Commission, the filing of a formal antitrust complaint is not something we take lightly.
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iTechWhiz
2:43 PM

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