Microsoft Files Antitrust Suit Against Google in Europe

Posted 03/31/2011 at 8:22am | by Paul Lilly

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It's not as though the European Union has typically needed much convincing to go after big corporations with antitrust suits, but just in case, Microsoft is trying to light a fire under European regulators' feet to zero in more aggressively on Google. As such, Microsoft filed a formal antitrust complaint in Europe against the sultan of search, alleging Google isn't playing fair by limiting access to some of its data from YouTube and other services, the L.A. Times reports.

"Google has done much to advance its laudable mission to 'organize the world's information,' but we're concerned by a broadening pattern of conduct aimed at stopping anyone else from creating a competitive alternative," Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith wrote in a blog post. "We've therefore decided to join a large and growing number of companies registering their concerns about the European search market."

At issue here is that Google has restricted the ability of Microsoft's Bing and other competitive search browsers to pull the necessary data from YouTube to properly display search results, Smith said. Smith also alleges that Google has blocked smartphones running Windows software from operating properly with YouTube, even though they work fine with Apple's iPhone and on Google's Android platform.

"Microsoft is ready to release a high-quality YouTube app for Windows Phone," Smith said. "We just need permission to access YouTube in the way that other phones already do, permission Google has refused to provide."

Microsoft's complaint is part of an ongoing antitrust investigation by the EU that was initially launched in November.