Justice Dept. Defends Microsoft Against Google 329
Frosty Piss writes "The Seattle PI reports that Google has complained to US antitrust officials about the hard-drive searching tool built into Windows Vista, saying that it stymies Google's similar search program. The complaint, lodged late last year, was revealed Saturday by The New York Times in a story about the Bush administration's handling of Microsoft antitrust issues. The real story, though, is not the Google complaint itself, but how the Justice Department is failing to enforce the Microsoft anti-trust decree. According to the story, Thomas Barnett, the assistant U.S. attorney general in charge of antitrust issues, sent a memo last month to state attorneys general across the nation, seeking to persuade them to reject Google's complaint."
google is EVIL! (Score:2, Insightful)
Or worse yet, Google is demanding that Microsoft bundle Google's crapware?
To hell with Google. This is the same company that made a deal with Apple to have Safari's web search box locked into Google so you can't change the default
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Even If google is evil! (Score:5, Insightful)
Even if google was evil, I'd still want to be able to turn off a search engine created by a proven anti-trust violator.
Wouldn't you?
Just because people claim google is evil is no reason to dismiss an act of a part that has been proven evil.
There must be a lot of MS supporters responding to the article, for who could miss the obviousnesss of this.
The party bringing out the fact that MS's search engine is always on is itself not an evil act. Unless you work for MS.
Re:Even If google is evil! (Score:5, Informative)
If you like like the command-prompt then type 'net stop "Windows Search"
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http://www.xefteri.com/articles/show.cfm?id=2 [xefteri.com]
It's been around for many years. You can switch it off.
Google is basically demanding Microsoft pull a service that has been around for pretty much ever. Well before google desktop search was even around. I think the US justice department is actually being quite sensible.
Nice try Google. I guess that'd be "Do no evil" with the caveat "Unless it's Microsoft then kick em where it counts."
Re:google is EVIL! (Score:5, Informative)
Google is asking that microsoft provide a way for the user to disable it, so that other competing desktop search programs dont battle each other for system resources and ultimately both slow the computer down.
They arent asking for it to be removed outright
Re:google is EVIL! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:google is EVIL! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:google is EVIL! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:google is EVIL! (Score:4, Informative)
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IIRC Google uses some of the spotlight stuff (memory is hazy so I can't say how) to their advantage. It's not as simple as "a different front-end for spotlight with Gmail indexing added", but it makes use of some of the spotlight mechanisms to index local resources.
So I guess one question would be as to whether Windows' indexing is open enough that Google can make use of any of it. Is that the difference?
Also, AFAIK, Apple wasn't determined to be a monopoly guilty of anti-trust violations. Is that the
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You expect Google to ask antitrust officials to look into Apple's activities with regard to OS X? Apple does not have a monopoly and they certainly have not been convicted of abusing that monopoly to the point where antitrust officials are supposed to be regulating their behavior.
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The problem is that there's no way to turn it off, and running Google desktop simultaneously therefore causes the computer to slow down enough that no one would want to install Google Desktop.
There should never be anything wrong with including something with the operating system, it's preventing competitors from competing on merit that's the problem - even the Netscape issue was never purely about the bundling of IE - as much as the overly simplistic c
You can find out how to turn it off (Score:5, Funny)
What do you mean you can't turn it off? (Score:2, Insightful)
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The argument that you seem to be making is "Google must sell personal data because they are evil, and they are evil because they sell personal data.", which is a circular argument.
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1. Google doesn't care if the search tool is bundled or not, they just want MS to expose some why to turn the thing off. Having both indexing tools running at the same time hinders performance more then having just one run. Given that you can't disable Vista's most people will opt for disabling Google's. Hence anti-competitive.
2. It's similar to IE & Netscape because the end user / OEM can't remove IE from a machine and replace it with an alternative.
3. Everything el
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YES! (Score:2, Interesting)
You mean, like this? [ubuntu.com] I'm all for it.
Like this? [kubuntu.org] Sounds good, let's do it!
Re:google is EVIL! (Score:4, Informative)
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BTW, there isn't really a "streaming media player market" either, but control over which media players people use may be an attempt to control the "streaming media server market" which is real.
However, there are a couple other things I
The IP Issue Was With Stacker (Score:2)
Microsoft always has been evil and now Google has turned evil as well. I'm switching away from using Google as a search engine. The are doing too much data mining, profiling, etc. I switched to Linux a long time ago.
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According to the Wikipedia [wikipedia.org], they claimed that Microsoft's compression technology copied their patented compression technology. Microsoft claimed that their compression technology didn't infringe. A jury disagreed and Microsoft lost.
There was no code copied anywhere, it was purely a software patent issue.
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Re:google is EVIL! (Score:4, Insightful)
No, they are demanding that Microsoft lets people disable it. You know, like you can do on any other operating system.
Hell, if I'd been in charge of Microsoft, I would've been bundling Windows Desktop Search with XP for years now.
In fact, I think it's perfectly reasonable to demand that no operating system "bundle" desktop search, web browsers, or other software like that and instead give users the option to pick and choose what components they like.
Re:google is EVIL! (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't.
I believe operating systems should have had effective file management, including searches, version control, and virtual folders more than a decade ago.
The only reason an ecosystem of third-party utilities has sprung up is because Microsoft has been so sluggish at improving their OS. Let's face it, database-like file management was available in systems like BEOS since 1995. Unfortunately, now a wealth of third-party fixes to Windows limitations has sprung up, and MS can't implement what should be basic functionality without running foul of antitrust issues.
It's their own laxity that's brought them this trap, so I have little sympathy.
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Quite right.
The only reason an ecosystem of third-party utilities has sprung up is because Microsoft has been so sluggish at improving their OS.
Yes, and why do you think that is? I'll tell you: because, currently, meaningful competition for desktop features is impossible; you may get a bunch of small shareware vendors, but Microsoft can kill them whenever th
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In fact, I think it's perfectly reasonable to demand that no operating system "bundle" desktop search, web browsers, or other software like that and instead give users the option to pick and choose what components they like.
And what about all those people who haven't the knowledge, experience, time or interest to do so ? You know, the 99% of the market that Microsoft and Apple are selling to ?
Microsoft aren't selling you a garage full of parts and a greasy service manual, they're selling you a car. If
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Then what are they complaining about? It can easily be disabled.
Not only can the service be turned off, and not only can you specify which locations should/shouldn't be indexed, but there is a public api available that any 3rd party piece of software can use to turn it off or configure it.
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Or worse yet, Google is demanding that Microsoft bundle Google's crapware? [slashdot.org]
The worst thing about google software is that they distrubute it like malware, in the sense that its hidden in other software like Adobe Reader, Java, and Firefox. If your not careful you can end up with goodle toolbars, sidebars and whatnot installed on your machine.
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If other OSes can ship it then so can Microsoft.
Correction: If other OS publishers who've been convicted of abusing their monopoly can do it, then so can Microsoft.
For convicted monopolists, there are different rules then for non-convicted monopolists and everyone else. This is partly because you can't throw a monopoly into jail, and partly to keep the market fair and free (if you want a totally free market then we have to get rid of copyright laws, therefore most companies don't want a completely free market and as such rules coming into the market mus
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one one hand Microsofts monopoly on THEIR operating system!
on the other hand Google's attempts to have their spyware installed on every computer so they can collect even more data!
kinda ironic that microsofts monopoly is making SPYWARE run slow, lol
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I dont know whats worse:
blah blah blah blah Microsoft blah blah blah blah blah !
blah blah blah Google blah blah blah blah blah blah !
Shoot, I'll go for the Microsoft one, it must be the worse one.
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Dude, you were modded troll and overrated? What the hell did you expect! You just the equivalent of walking to a bunch of girls screaming "Those jeans make your ass fat!"
How could groupthink see through a slogan? It's hard, man! A slogan must be unbrekable, it's like a law. Like Moore's law. Wait, Moore's law isn't really a law too? Screw that, I chose to believe otherwise.
Microsoft is evil since Bill Gates looks like a geek. Google has color balls and funny logos o
Re:google is EVIL! (Score:4, Insightful)
Since Microsoft has an effective monopoly on operating systems for commodity hardware, they have to play under different, more restrictive, rules. If Apple locks down Safari search it affects about 10 percent of users, 50% of which use Firefox, anyway. When Microsoft introduces new features into Windows, if affects 90+% of the market.
It's also illegal for Microsoft to leverage its monopoly on desktop OSs to gain a monopoly on other existing markets (like web browsers, office suites, corporate e-mail, file and print servers, anti-virus and, yes, desktop search). And, mind you, since being judged guilty of extending their monopoly in the anti-trust lawsuit, they _have_ such restrictions in place and the DoJ _should_ be doing something about it.
While it may look obvious they should be able to extend their products at will, it should be noted that by doing so in an unrestrained way, they can harm the market in very severe ways.
Of course, if all things continue the way they do, Google's time under the microscope is coming, but that doesn't mean Microsoft can do whatever it wants.
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The point is not that the MS tool competes with Google's but that it prevents Google's from running properly. Apple provides a similar search tool (Spotlight), but you can still download Google's to use instead if you want.
Lighten up Francis...
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Are people really this retarded, cause I see this repeated?
Click Control Panel - Indexing - Uncheck the locations it searches.
Method two: Set the Windows Search to 'Manual' or 'Disabled'.
Both of these are EASY for the user, and something EVEN a Google Installer could do automatically for a user if the user chose to do it.
This is not Someth
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The complaint is about the fact that you can't even turn off the Windows Live search, causing any competitor's search software (e.g. Google's) to slow down significantly.
Are people really this retarded, cause I see this repeated?
Click Control Panel - Indexing - Uncheck the locations it searches.
Method two: Set the Windows Search to 'Manual' or 'Disabled'.
Both of these are EASY for the user, and something EVEN a Google Installer could do automatically for a user if the user chose to do it.
This is not Something that can't be turned off and doesn't run all the time if you don't want it to.
I can't believe people read the Google crap and are so retarded they think it is accurate or even a legitimate complaint.
How many people are going to know this? Or even know that this is the problem? You give far too much credit to the average user.
They're going to see a link on google's homepage for the newest greatest google program they can download. They're going to click through install as fast as they can not reading anything like they always do. Then they're going to notice that their computer is going a whole lot slower. They're going to think "hm, the only thing that's changed since it's been going slow is I install
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Then they should bitch at Google, as it is Google's installers responsibility to turn off the Search engine it is replacing.
Like I said above, this is something an installer can easily do with the user's permission, and if Google neglects to do this in order to drum up support to purport MS as evil then people need to point the finger at the correct company for being evil.
Isn't 'don't be evil' part of Google's internal motto? With the st
Thomas O. Barnett (Score:5, Interesting)
Seems strange that they'd hire someone from a law firm associated with Microsoft for the Justice Dept. and then put him in a position to comment on an MS case.
Re:Thomas O. Barnett (Score:5, Informative)
What you might not have heard is that Jack Abramoff, the crooked lobbyist who helped build Bush's crooked Republican Congress, got his start lobbying out of Bill Gates' father's law firm, Preston Gates. It would seem strange if Microsoft weren't getting the benefit of the crooked system it's helped train and build.
silly fool, nothing to see here (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Thomas O. Barnett (Score:5, Insightful)
How the hell is this strange. This is the Bush administration.
They put oil executives in charge of the EPA
they put antitrust defence lawyers in the Justice Dept.
They put drug company executives in charge of the FDA
I mean really now. Take a look here. http://www.iraqtimeline.com/bushcab.html [iraqtimeline.com]
And maybe someone can lookup these clowns and see what their prior industry affiliation is http://www.whitehouse.gov/government/cabinet.html [whitehouse.gov]Re:Thomas O. Barnett (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a conflict of interest.
Look at it this way, why don't we take your idea here and run with it. Let's put the rapists in charge of crisis centers and murderers in charge of prisons, after all, they have "background" in the field.
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Re:Thomas O. Barnett (Score:5, Insightful)
But that's just me.
Grep against Google (Score:5, Funny)
"Grep is an evil command, and as a company that will do no evil, we must have evil commands removed." said a Google spokesman, before returning to his weekend pasttime of clubbing baby seals.
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Then the calculator application
Then Wordpad
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1. The indexer runs in the background continuously
2. No API to turn it off.
Why is slashdot full of MS trolls today? I notice they're avoiding the question of why the US govt is now part of MS's out-reach program.
Re:Grep against Google (Score:5, Informative)
2. Its a Windows Service you can easily turn it off.
Why is slashdot full of trolls today?
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Ive seen many installers do it to date, why is it so hard for Google to do?
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You are thinking of the indexing service that came over from XP. Vista has something
Re:Grep against Google (Score:5, Insightful)
You're right to say that the Instant Search box cannot be removed, but Google are saying that the indexing that is being done interferes with their own indexing, which in fact it does not as Windows Search indexing only occurs on idle CPU cycles, so Google's will be given a higher priority. They're also saying you can't deactivate it, which you can - GDS modifies the Services when it sets itself to start on boot, so it's once again trivial to include in that a method of deactivating Windows Search. As I mentioned in another post, they tacitly admit that GDS works fine by providing Sidebar plugins and other miscellaneous extras that are designed specifically for Vista.
Google's arguments here are disingenuous at best and deliberately misleading at worst - I have a feeling they're trying to get Windows Search removed merely to cripple Windows searching and create a niche which doesn't currently exist for them in Vista.
Just goes to show what I always say... (Score:5, Funny)
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Google should buy some politicians (Score:2, Troll)
Rule of the people by the people for the people? This is more like rule of the people by big govt for big govt.
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Besides, I've many of these "people" you refer to (having lived in both metro and non-metro areas) - you really don't want many of those people running the government. That's not to say that the CxO class is doing a good job - quite the contrary. But you're not going to get magical parity by letting the general poulation make decisions - they are very poor at seei
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So? (Score:3, Interesting)
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Actually, all this shows is that Microsoft should have paid for their politicians a couple years ago, then there would have been no anti-trust case at all.
If the government really believed that Microsoft was a monopoly and doing evil, then why, when dealing with the government, do all documents have to be in Microsoft Office format? The US Government is large enough that if it switched to any other software, Microsoft's dom
Something Important is missing here.... (Score:3)
Consumers/buyers are the ones with the loudest voice, they are the ones the politicians are really supposed to listen to, but if the information that allows the consumer to check it out for themselves and express their choice and concerns, is kept confidential and away from the consumer then there is one question to ask: Why?
What is it that Microsofts search engine is looking for that it is always running and why is the initial political response backing this?
Sidebar:
IS there some connection to spying on the public, which in this case would be the public even outside of the US?
If it is then I suspect, due to the easy to hypothisize of the 6 billion or so people in the world, it is some fraction of 1 percent that are in positions of warmongering and in general causing problems that otherwise do not exist. If it is for spying then that a lot of funding that could be better spent fixing real problems and removing the excuses of these major wrong doers.
End of sidebar:
Back to the MS search engine. Why is it always on?
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Indexing and search are?
A) The same
B) Different
c) both A & B
It's not a bug, its a feature.... it's not a search, its an indexing. Trust us, we are the MSNSA.
Deadlock (Score:2)
Even though Apple and Google are both also US companies that would thrive with a less powerful Microsoft.
A lot easier for the security services if the major player is a US company. Easier to get tools to bypass encryption etc..
I don't know whats more disturbing (Score:2, Insightful)
hmm (Score:4, Insightful)
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This worked with Netscape thanks to the sharp rise in internet use by the common user when IE started coming bundled with Windows. At that point, a web browser was indeed an intergral part of the OS and thu
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Lesser of two evils...? (Score:2, Insightful)
Why can't we admit that capitalism and good design are oppositional forces, and that we the people through our
Why are they not complaining about OSX? (Score:2, Interesting)
Let's play Monopoly (Score:2)
I was actually thinking the same thing at first, but then again, Apple does not have a monopoly over the personal computer market. Microsoft does (according to the DOJ). Therefore they have to play by different rules, I guess.
I'm not saying I necessarily agree wi
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Still, it's not like it's a new idea (Score:2)
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1) Windows Search does not break Google Desktop Search. In fact, if they are run side by side Google's search will have a higher system priority. Google even tacitly admit it works fine here [google.com].
2) Of course Google don't care about Linux tools - they don't make a version of GDS for Linux.
3) Windows Search is very easily disabled, far more easily than
Hypocrisy much? (Score:2)
No such thing as a conflict of interest in the Bush administration. No bid contracts funneled to Cheney's former company and a lawyer that used to represent Microsoft put in charge of the Justice Department's anti-trust actions against Microsoft:
The official, Thomas O. Barnett, an assistant attorney general, had until 2004 been a top antitrust partner at the law firm that has represented Microsoft in several antitrust disputes.
At a minimum this guy should have recused himself from handling any DOJ mat
This is what Microsoft normally does (Score:5, Insightful)
Historically, Microsoft has moved widely needed functions into their operating system and thereby eliminated the market for alternatives. When they did that for disk compression, Stacker went out of business. When they did it for TCP/IP networking, Trumpet Winsock disappeared. When they did it for email, Eudora stopped being a viable business. When they did it for browsers, Netscape Inc. went from a dot-com success to collapse.
Right now, they're doing it for anti-virus tools, which threatens McAfee, and desktop search, which threatens Google. They'll probably win on both of those, because there's little incentive to install a competitor's tools if those come bundled with the operating system, and because those tools can be tightly integrated with the operating system.
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Which is why as a software company (if I were one), I'd never write a damn peice of software for Microsoft
Dance with the devil, then you can expect to rot in hell, when you no longer serve his purposes.
Sucks doesn't it? Why any company would write software for MS who can and often does poach designs and ideas from other companies, is beyond me. Seriously.
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As a consumer, I say GOOD. Because if all that stuff wasn't bundled into the operating system, then I'd have to get it all myself, and often pay for it.
The MacOS includes all that stuff, and more, for free when you buy OS X. Why can't I have that when I buy Windows Vista?
And there is nothing stopping me from deciding to 1) purchase a competing product and installing it, or 2) not purchasing Vista at all and getting a machine with Linux.
The morons are out in force at /. today (Score:3, Insightful)
Moron 1: Google didn't say that - they said allow it to be turned off.
Moron 2: You CAN turn it off.
Moron 3: Google didn't say that - they said allow it to be turned off.
Moron 4: You CAN turn it off.
Moron 5: Google didn't say that - they said allow it to be turned off.
Moron 6: You CAN turn it off.
Moron 7: Google didn't say that - they said allow it to be turned off.
Moron 8: You CAN turn it off.
Moron 9: Google didn't say that - they said allow it to be turned off.
Moron 10: You CAN turn it off.
Moron 11: Google didn't say that - they said allow it to be turned off.
Moron 12: You CAN turn it off.
Moron 12: Google didn't say that - they said allow it to be turned off.
Moron 14: You CAN turn it off.
Moron 15: Google didn't say that - they said allow it to be turned off.
Moron 16: You CAN turn it off.
There's your whole first page...
Morons...
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Right click a file of the type you want to change, choose Open With and make sure you tick Always Open Files of This Type With.. option
Programs will always steal the file types, because they play them and you specifically chose to download and install it, therefore you want it to work.
Simpler way would be to stop clicking blindly through an installation, that's a good way to get crap on your system you don't want or need..
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Google is asking for a way to disable the Windows Indexer, which currently can't be disabled. And having *two* indexers running at the same time introduces a
And guess what, if somebody is actually installing Google Desktop, gee, gosh...maybe it's cause they want to actually try Google Desktop, rather than run it and the Windows Indexer at the same time. It's called making life easier for your users - you run the Google Desktop installer, and gosh, it
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Did i just do something completely different then? [za.net]
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Re:Yeah, but at least he doesn't have supergulibil (Score:2)
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skip through the installation like anyone else and before I know it all m
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I am, of course, basing this post on non-vista operating systems; if you use vista, you deserve whatever happens to you. "it came with my computer" is no better an excuse than "I was just following orders".
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Both have Real player and Google Desktop are crap programs and the companies are using the legal system to promote their applications.
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This is no different from the whole MS IE crap where MS claimed that "it is a part of the OS and cannot be removed". This is just another MS move to try to stop any competing desktop search products in Vista.
Troll? It was Modded +5 Insightful (Score:2)
What's the deal?
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