Vantage point




Wednesday, May 03, 2006

Some Anti-Trust-Poker

Google is rapidly transforming from the lovable-innocent-geek-company to a ruthless corporation. And why not? It now has the interests of millions of shareholders to look after. The latest sign of this transformation taking another step is this bizarre, whiny and ridiculous complaint about Microsoft promoting its own search option in IE7.

I have never been a big fan of anti-trust laws, but even under that premise, this reeks of hypocrisy. Firefox and Opera, both have Google as the default search engine. Firefox even has a tiny search square in its toolbar, and it is virtually identical to the MSN search square it is complaining about.

You may want to point out the holes in Google's argument, and call it hypocritical. But it would be futile. I'm sure even P&B know how ridiculous it is. But you see, Google is a corporation now. And M$ is its competitor. So any legal way to squeeze the competition and make its life hell is fair. while most of us bloggers may scoff at Google, and accuse it of double standards, the courts may not. And the hallowed European Commission will definitely not. That is what it is all about. making Microsoft's life a bit tougher, and make them burn up some money in the courts.

So here's to Google and their first major attempt at playing anti-trust-poker.