Google wants government to extend oversight of Microsoft

Mountain View (CA) – Google has asked the courts to extend the government’s consent decree over Microsoft. The search engine giant believes Microsoft will not honor its promise to add new search options in the Vista operating system and wants the Justice Department to take a closer look into antitrust violations.

Last week, Microsoft announced that it would change certain default options within Vista to allow third-party search tools like Google’s Desktop Search (GDS) to work better with the operating system. Google had contended that Vista’s built-in search tools interfered with GDS by taking up too much processor and disk resources. Google was also upset about the prominent placement in the taskbar of Vista’s “Instant Search” feature.

Back in 1998, the Justice Department and several state attorney generals investigated Microsoft for numerous antitrust complaints. A consent decree was signed in 2002 that mandated Microsoft to open up various parts of its operating system and also required status reports every six months. If you are a legal junkie, you can read all the Justice Department documents on their handy Microsoft antitrust reference page here.

The consent decree is set to expire on November 12th, but Google wants that deadline extended. Microsoft has promised to include desktop search changes in its Vista Service Pack 1, but that will be released after the consent decree expires. Microsoft also says that it has complied with all of the requirements laid out by the decree.

Google basically doesn’t trust Microsoft to keep its word and in the brief says, “Given Microsoft’s history of aggressively minimizing the impact of court ordered relief, it is appropriate for the Court to use its authority to extend Final Judgement”

But is Google taking things too far and forcing its Google Desktop Search on people who don’t want it ? It’s an interesting question because anti-competitive practices is what got Microsoft into this whole consent decree mess, but Google could be playing the role of the aggressor.

Theodore Bolema, a law professor at Central Michigan University and a former antitrust Justice Department attorney, told the Washington Post that Google is now using the “heavy hand of the government” to essentially ensure that it remains the top search engine.