Google asks for longer oversight of Microsoft
Google Inc. asked a federal judge Monday to extend the consent decree that settled the landmark antitrust case against Microsoft Corp. in order to address competition concerns involving the Windows Vista operating system.
Google told the judge overseeing the 2002 consent decree that even though Microsoft had agreed to modify Vista to address the concerns, “more may need to be done to provide a truly unbiased choice of desktop search products.”
The court brief was filed by Google less than a week after Microsoft agreed to modify its Windows Vista operating system in response to a complaint by the search engine giant that Vista’s computer search function put potential rivals at a disadvantage.
The agreement was announced last week with the Justice Department, 17 state attorneys general and the District of Columbia. Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft promised to build into Vista an option to let users select a default desktop search program on personal computers running Windows.
The Vista function, known as Instant Search, allows Windows users to enter a query and get a list of results from their hard drive that contain the search term.
Under Microsoft’s agreement with the Justice Department, the changes to Vista will be introduced in a service pack, or updated version of Windows Vista software. Microsoft said it anticipated that a test version of the Vista Service Pack 1 would be ready by the end of the year.
On Monday, Google said that some of the steps Microsoft had agreed to take were “only vaguely described” and that by the time the fixes were made, the consent decree would have already expired.
The consent decree restricting Microsoft’s conduct, which settled the government’s antitrust case against the company, is scheduled to expire in November. Some provisions, however, have already been extended to November 2009.
Microsoft spokesman Jack Evans said the company had addressed the concerns raised by Mountain View, Calif.-based Google and opposed the idea of extending the consent decree.
“The government has clearly stated that it is satisfied with the changes we’re making. Google has provided no new information that should suggest otherwise in their filing,” Evans said.
