Google Calls On Judge To Extend Microsoft's Four-Year Antitrust Scrutiny!

In the battle of the Web giants, Google, following last week's complaint that Windows Vista's's desktop search “functionality puts competitors at a disadvantage” (which was put to rest) “called on a judge to extend part of the US government’s four-year antitrust scrutiny of Microsoft” reports the Financial Times.

Though last week's issue has come to an agreement with Microsoft agreeing to "add a link that if clicked will launch the default desktop search program and display search results from that program", Google is still fired up to keep the issue awake despite a humbled Microsoft saying, they had taken “the extra mile to resolve these issues in a spirit of compromise. The government clearly showed it is satisfied with the changes we are making.”

The Financial Times reports that, “Under that landmark agreement, a US court is charged with overseeing Microsoft’s integration of this type of software with its Windows operating system. The arrangement is designed to prevent the sort of anti- competitive behaviour by which Microsoft crushed the web browser company Netscape.”

“Google has appealed directly to Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, the judge charged with reviewing how regulators apply the consent decree. It is the first approach of its kind, and the first time the judge has been asked to intervene directly in the way the US settlement with Microsoft is enforced. Ms Kollar-Kotelly is due to hold the latest of her regular biannual hearings into the Microsoft antitrust case on Tuesday morning.”

Netscape was once the most dominant browser but lost to Microsoft's Internet Explorer. By the end of November 2006, the Netscape users' share had dropped from 85% (in the 90's) to a dismal 1%.

Click here, for more on the Joint Status report on Microsoft's Compliance with the final judgements.

It was Microsoft Corp who pushed the FTC Review Google's DoubleClick Acquisition! as the merger (Google and DoubleClick) would give one company access to more information about the Internet activities of consumers than any other company in the world.

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