The regulatory battle between Google and Microsoft  is not over yet. Less than a week after antitrust regulators agreed to force Microsoft to address Google's complaint about Vista's built-in desktop search, the search giant is asking the federal court for more.
Specifically, Google has asked the court to extend oversight in an agreement that settled federal and state antitrust cases against the Redmond, Washington-based company years ago. The oversight was supposed to expire on November 12, 2007. For its part, Microsoft turned the tables on its Internet rival with its own court filing that challenges Google's right to ask the court for the extension.
At issue are the changes Microsoft made to Windows Vista last week to address Google's concerns that users of the operating system would be discouraged from installing competing desktop search tools. Typically, desktop search tools are free to the user, and the hope among search companies offering these tools is that if you get consumers accustomed to searching their hard drives with a particular brand, they will search the Internet with that same brand.
Google's Beef
Google alleged that Microsoft has a history of aggressively minimizing the impact of court-ordered relief and that the changes it made to accommodate alternative desktop search tools are vague and need clarification. In other words, the search king is not convinced that Microsoft is doing all it can to give consumers greater access to alternative desktop search providers.
"The Court and the public would benefit greatly from a description of the precise measures Microsoft is planning to implement and the practical effect they will have on users of desktop search," Google said in its legal filing. "For example, it appears that Microsoft will continue to show its own desktop search results when users run searches from prominent shortcuts and menu entries throughout the operating system, though users will now be given a mechanism to request results from their chosen desktop search product by taking a second step after they have first viewed results from Microsoft's product."
Google further objects to the "automatic invocation of Microsoft's desktop search product following the boot sequence." Google said Microsoft's plans to address this issue by providing unspecified technical info to companies and users is just not enough.
What Side Are You On?
In this ongoing battle in which Microsoft and Google are involving regulators, organizations are taking clear sides. Americans for Technology Leadership, for example, is standing with Microsoft. Jim Prendergast, executive director of the organization, said media reports of secret complaints and recent court filings by Google show that the search company is desperate to hamstring its competition in the courtroom rather than compete in the marketplace. (continued...)
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