Google complains to DOJ about Vista search
Google accuses Microsoft of discouraging users from running its software
Follow @infoworldGoogle has complained to federal antitrust officials that the search tool in Microsoft's Windows Vista discourages customers from using its own search utility, the company confirmed Sunday.
Stories posted to the Web sites of The New York Times (registration required) and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer Saturday first revealed that Google's complaint centered on Vista's built-in desktop search software, dubbed Instant Search. According to both newspapers, Google accused Microsoft of designing Vista to discourage users from running its indexing and search software.
On Sunday, Google spokesman Ricardo Reyes confirmed the charge. "Microsoft's current approach with Vista desktop search violates its agreement with the government and hurts consumers." he said in an e-mail to Computerworld. "The search boxes built throughout Vista are hard-wired to Microsoft's own desktop search product, with no way for users to choose an alternate provider from these visible search access points. Likewise, Vista makes it impractical to turn off Microsoft's search index."
According to postings on Microsoft's support forums, the only way to completely disable Vista's search is to stop the Windows Search service in the Microsoft Management Console.
Microsoft disputed Google's charges. "We've been working with state and federal antitrust officials for the past two years to ensure that there are no problems with any of the features in Windows Vista," said company spokesman Jack Evans. "These desktop search issues were reviewed at length with regulators prior to the release of Windows Vista and resulted in more than a dozen changes at their request."
Even so, Microsoft will consider more changes to Vista, Evans added. "While we don’t believe there are any compliance concerns with desktop search, we are committed to going the extra mile to resolve this issue, so long as the changes Google is requesting do nothing to undermine the privacy and security of computer users."
During a March 2007 hearing conducted by Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, the federal judge who oversees the 2002 Microsoft consent decree, the government's status report noted that a complaint had been filed, but did not identify the company. "At the last status conference, plaintiffs reported that they had just received a middleware-related complaint," the status report read.
"Since then, plaintiffs have been investigating this complaint, including obtaining significant additional information from Microsoft and the complainant."
