May 19, 2006
The U.S. Justice Department has came to the decision, after trying out the search features on Microsoft (MSFT) Internet Explorer 7, that Google's (GOOG) concerning the default settings for the search box do not violate Microsoft's antitrust agreement with the federal and state governments.
Google implied that the default setting that is on MSN Search would give Microsoft an advantage over its competitors. Around 90 percent of PC users choose the Windows operating system.
The decision was that after testing the feature they found that it was simple and easy to change the default settings to whichever engine they wanted to use, opposite of what Google asserted.
We talked about the obvious stupidity of what Google did in a recent post. But you never know in an election year what politicians will do. They've already done some stupid things this year that we'll probably pay for in the future.
What this all says to me though, is more in reference to Google: I think that for the first time in company history, they are feeling the competitive pressures and are beginning to struggle.
They are only number four in the video search area as we talked about recently, and everybody is starting to really pursue them in the search advertising dollars. This attempt at shutting Microsoft out of the search area on Explorer 7 reveals that they are feeling the pressure.
