Microsoft files EU competition complaint against Google

Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith admitted there was "irony in today's filing". The software maker spent more than ten years fighting European competition law investigations that resulted in it being hit with hundreds of millions of euros in fines.

"The filing of a formal antitrust complaint is not something we take lightly," said Brad Smith in a blog post outlining the action. "This is the first time Microsoft Corporation has ever taken this step. More so than most, we recognize the importance of ensuring that competition laws remain balanced and that technology innovation moves forward."

Microsoft claims that Google stops other companies from accessing the information needed to run effective search operations. Its video site YouTube, for example, hides some information from non-Google search engines such as Microsoft's Bing, it said.

"It has put in place a growing number of technical measures to restrict competing search engines from properly accessing [YouTube] for their search results," said Smith. "Without proper access to YouTube, Bing and other search engines cannot stand with Google on an equal footing in returning search results with links to YouTube videos and that, of course, drives more users away from competitors and to Google."

Smith said that Google had blocked phones running Windows operating systems from certain YouTube features and that only its own search engine would access the books that Google scanned in the Google Books plan rejected by a New York court last week.

Microsoft also criticised Google because it said the search company promoted and demoted other companies' ads in search results in an unfair way.

"Over the past year, a growing number of advertisers, publishers, and consumers have expressed to us their concerns about the search market in Europe," said Smith. "They’ve urged us to share our knowledge of the search market with competition officials."

Smith recognised that it put Microsoft in an unusual position, that of siding with EU competition law officials.

"There of course will be some who will point out the irony in today’s filing," he said. "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."

"We readily appreciate that Google should continue to have the freedom to innovate. But it shouldn’t be permitted to pursue practices that restrict others from innovating and offering competitive alternatives. That’s what it’s doing now. And that’s what we hope European officials will assess and ultimately decide to stop," said Smith.