Thursday, March 31, 2011

Adding our Voice to Concerns about Search in Europe - Microsoft on the Issues - Site Home - TechNet Blogs

Excerpt from a blog post statement by Brad Smith, Microsoft Senior Vice President & General Counsel

How does it do this?  Google has built its business on indexing and displaying snippets of other organizations’ Web content.  It understands as well as anyone that search engines depend upon the openness of the Web in order to function properly, and it’s quick to complain when others undermine this.  Unfortunately, Google has engaged in a broadening pattern of walling off access to content and data that competitors need to provide search results to consumers and to attract advertisers. 

On PCs it is usually not difficult for people to navigate to any search engine.  Google in fact makes this point virtually every time someone raises antitrust concerns about their practices.  Their defense ignores the hugely important fact that there are many other important ways that search services compete.  Search engines compete to index the Web as fully as possible so they can generate good search results, they compete to gain advertisers (the source of revenue in this business), and they compete to gain distribution of their search boxes through Web sites.  Consumers will not benefit from clicking to alternative sites unless all search engines have a fair opportunity to compete in each of these areas. 

Our filing details many instances where Google is impeding competition in these areas.  A half-dozen examples below help illustrate some of our concerns. 

Adding our Voice to Concerns about Search in Europe - Microsoft on the Issues - Site Home - TechNet Blogs

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