Google accuses Microsoft on "Vista search"

Google Inc. has filed a confidential antitrust complaint against Microsoft, accusing the software giant of designing its Vista operating system to discourage use of Google's desktop search program, but the US Department of Justice (DOJ) has declined to pursue the case, according to a report published on "The New York Times" Website on Sunday.

In a white paper sent to the Justice Department and state attorneys general in April, Google alleged that the Windows Vista search feature slows down its competing Google Desktop Search (GDS) program, discouraging consumers from using its search program.

In its complaint, which is tied to a consent decree that monitors Microsoft's behavior, Google claimed that Microsoft was violating the 2002 antitrust settlement against the company, which restricts software company from designing operating systems that limit consumer choice.

“Microsoft's current approach with Vista desktop search violates its agreement with the government and hurts consumers,” Google spokesman Ricardo Reyes was quoted in the report as saying. “The search boxes built throughout Vista are hard-wired to Microsoft's own desktop search product, with no way for users to choose an alternate provider from these visible search access points. Likewise, Vista makes it impractical to turn off Microsoft's search index.”

On contrary, Bradford L. Smith, the general counsel at Microsoft, said that the new operating system was carefully designed to work well with rival software products. He also said that Vista went for sale only after years-long examinations by an independent technical committee that works for the Justice Department and the states, who reviewed Vista several times for possible anticompetitive problems.

"We've been working with state and federal antitrust officials for the past two years to ensure that there are no problems with any of the features in Windows Vista," said Microsoft’s spokesman Jack Evans. "These desktop search issues were reviewed at length with regulators prior to the release of Windows Vista and resulted in more than a dozen changes at their request."

But, Internet powerhouse argues that Microsoft Vista's indexing service cannot easily be shut off and creates a drag on system resources when operating at the same time as rival indexers, like the one in Google Desktop Search. Google further contends that this behavior is anticompetitive, and several state Attorneys General seem ready to pursue the issue.

According to NYT report, the DoJ refused to pursue the Google complaint, and Thomas Barnett, the assistant U.S. attorney general for antitrust, sent a memo to various state attorneys general in May urging them to also dismiss the complaint.

There is a series of indicts, Microsoft faced last year relating to its products. Earlier last year the search engine giant, Google lodged formal accusation to the European Commission (EC) and the US Department of Justice that Microsoft was violating antitrust boundaries by making its own search box, the default for the Internet Explorer tool bar.

In order to propitiate regulators in the EU, Microsoft, the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions, last year had agreed to make a number of changes to Windows Vista including search, security and a host of other key functions. The company agreed to make changes in response to guidance the company received from the European Commission, Brad Smith had said.

Symantec and McAfee, the leading security vendors have been rebellious over Microsoft's plans to make its own security center dashboard an integrated feature of Vista and to keep security vendors out from accessing to the operating system kernel.

Last year in September, by giving courteous attentions to the main concerns of Symantec, Microsoft agreed to allow access to the heart, or kernel, of the Windows operating system to security products made by competitors. Adding to this, Microsoft changed the area of search in Vista, allowing users to choose their own search engine and make it the default Internet search tool on their machine.

The competition between the most successful and influential software company, Microsoft and Google, the leader in Web search and a provider of software applications run over the Internet has intensified for the last few months.

Barnett will present the next report on Microsoft's progress in meeting the 2002 settlement to Kollar-Kotelly of the Federal District Court in Washington, the judge overseeing the consent decree, in a hearing scheduled for June 26.