Google to Face Congressional Antitrust Hearing - NYTimes.com

A big week for Google

“The similarity between Google and Microsoft years ago is the potential for harm, the risk that a dominant company uses its power to disadvantage others,” said Mitchell Kapor, a longtime Silicon Valley technologist and investor. “But Google was born on the open Internet, and things are just generally far more open to innovators and start-ups than in the Microsoft era.”

And, as proof of the rapid turn of fortunes in technology, Microsoft is now the underdog, trailing well behind Google in search and search advertising, urging government officials to take action. Microsoft has met regularly with antitrust investigators in America and filed a complaint against Google in Europe this year.

“We appreciate the irony,” Brad Smith, Microsoft’s general counsel, said in an interview earlier this year.

Google to Face Congressional Antitrust Hearing - NYTimes.com