Microsoft Parrots Google In Suggesting Tie-Up With Yahoo Violates Antitrust Laws

from the just-stay-quiet dept

Tue, Jul 15th 2008 5:54pm — Mike Masnick

Back in February, we pointed out that Google was playing with fire in suggesting that a Microsoft-Yahoo merger would violate antitrust laws. It seemed fairly obvious that those statements would come back to haunt Google -- a company many others have been accusing of antitrust violations. And, indeed, even with Microsoft still trying to buy Yahoo, Microsoft is now making nearly identical antitrust claims against Google concerning its ad deal with Yahoo. It's all legal posturing, of course, in an attempt to get the government to annoy a competitor. As Declan McCullagh points out at the link above, if either company really believes that the other was violating antitrust laws, it's perfectly free to file a private antitrust lawsuit. But, instead, both companies are playing a game in trying to get the government to be a pest for the other -- and now they get to use each other's scary monopoly language when tossing around accusations as well. So once again, might we suggest that both Microsoft and Google might be better off keeping their mouths zipped on anything involving antitrust violations from the other one?

Filed Under: antitrust, congressional oversight, language
Companies: google, microsoft, yahoo

8 Comments

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Prophet of Google, 15 Jul 2008 @ 6:49pm

Google can't have an anti-trust anything, for there is only one Google and nothing like it.
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- inc, 15 Jul 2008 @ 7:52pm
  
  Re:
  monopoly then... split it up
  lol
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Hoeppner, 15 Jul 2008 @ 8:31pm

I'd feel awfully sorry for the branch that got lively :D
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SVContrarian, 15 Jul 2008 @ 9:01pm

How can this be?

Google represents all that is good and right in the world... I submit to them freely my email contents for their keyword searching...They are a higher form of being, above the profit motive and deserving only to be admired...they're all good and deserving of all our internet love...

While Microsoft is pure evil...greedy corporate titans only interested in extending monopolies and maximizing profits...with the goal of eventual world domination. Any argument they make, regardless of its truth or merits deserves the scorn and disbelief TechDirt and Slashdot types everywhere!

How DARE Microsoft accuse Google of antitrust! Heresy! Forget about the facts! Rise up all ye internet rabble and defend Lord Google!
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- Dan, 15 Jul 2008 @ 10:54pm
  
  Re:
  It's simply a matter 0f how many politicians you own and Google has been neglecting their portfolio.
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- Paul`, 16 Jul 2008 @ 3:16am
  
  Re:
  I'm with this guy!
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- wasnt me, 16 Jul 2008 @ 4:11am
  
  Re:
  as much as i like google, i still wouldn't like them to "own the whole web" so to speak, but i dont think yahoo buying adds from google is an anti trust issue.
  
  but as far as MS (Evil) and Google (good) why not have those two companies merge, do you think they'd just cancel each other out?
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Abdul, 16 Jul 2008 @ 8:42am

Stop The Google Monster!!!
Hope Senate take this case seriously and applied the brakes to stop this google monster from possessing the internet: Monolithic Monster:Monolithic Monster: Is Google Replacing Microsoft?(http://www.internetevolution.com/author.asp?section_id=540&doc_id=148028&F_src=fl ftwo)
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