Google browser aided by Microsoft antitrust limits
September 4, 2008 – 5:03 am
Google Inc.’s new Chrome Web browser may get a boost from the efforts of states to bar Microsoft Corp. from abusing its dominance in the market.
Under the terms of its settlement of a U.S. antitrust case, Microsoft can’t pay personal-computer makers to keep competing browsers off their machines. While those terms were originally set to expire last year, California and five other states won an extension in January from U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly.
The states sought to lengthen the restrictions to help promote competition in the software industry. Google, owner of the world’s most popular Web search engine, is pitting Chrome against Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, which has more than 70 percent of the market.
“It’s harder for Microsoft to pressure computer makers,” said Robert Lande, a professor at the University of Baltimore Law School who worked for the Federal Trade Commission from 1978 to 1984. “Microsoft still can do indirect things, but it is harder for them, and it’s harder when they know that it’s Google and they have the muscle to fight back.”
The restrictions on Microsoft stem from a settlement negotiated in 2001, when a federal appeals court found that the company had violated antitrust laws by preventing PC makers from distributing Netscape Communications Corp.’s Navigator browser.
Google handles almost two-thirds of U.S. Internet searches. Unlike Microsoft, Mountain View, Calif.-based Google is free to strike exclusive partnerships with PC makers to get its browser onto their machines.
Google already has an agreement with Dell Inc. to install Google’s search toolbar on Dell machines. The company probably will seek to get its browser onto them, too, said Matt Rosoff, an analyst at Kirkland-based market research firm Directions on Microsoft.
“Striking deals with computer makers is absolutely what Google is going to do,” he said. “Microsoft is constrained from compelling computer makers, so they have to be careful.”
Sundar Pichai, Google’s vice president of product management, declined to comment on Google’s plans to attract browser users.
The limits also require Redmond-based Microsoft to make it simple for computer users to set rival browsers as their default choice.
“We respect the user’s right to choose the browser that fits their needs and do not comment on competitors,” Microsoft said in an e-mailed statement.
Last week, Microsoft released a test version of Internet Explorer 8 with privacy settings that let users control whether the program tracks and saves the sites they visit.
An optional feature that limits some third-party content on Web sites can block advertisements, Microsoft senior product manager James Pratt said last week. That may hurt Google, which gets almost all its sales from Internet advertising.
Source:seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/377508_msftbrowser03.html
