Google urges authorities to watch Microsoft
"Microsoft's hardwiring of its own desktop search product into Windows Vista violates the final judgment" in the US government's antitrust case against the software maker, said Google.
Over the past year, Google has complained to state and federal regulators that Microsoft's Instant Search program, which helps Windows Vista users search their hard drives, slows down third-party desktop search programs.
Google has also said Microsoft makes it hard for PC users to choose alternatives to the built-in search, including Google's own free Google Desktop program.
The search company's claims were meant to show that Microsoft is not complying with the antitrust settlement, reached in 2002 after the US government concluded Microsoft used its Windows operating system to squash competition.
Microsoft is now bound by a consent decree that requires it to help rivals build software that runs smoothly in Windows.
In a report published last week, the Justice Department and Microsoft detailed a compromise response to Google's complaints.
Windows Vista users will be able to set a non-Microsoft program as the default desktop search engine.
Microsoft also will add a link to that program in the Windows Start menu, but will not change the way Vista Instant Search works.
The software maker said the changes would be available by the end of the year.
For Google, those changes did not go far enough. The company asked US District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly to extend beyond November parts of the consent decree that govern "middleware", or software that links different computer programs.
"The remedies won by the Department of Justice and state attorneys general from Microsoft are a positive step, but consumers will likely need further measures to ensure meaningful choice," said Google's chief legal officer David Drummond.
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