BRUSSELS — Microsoft Corp. escalated its attack on Google Inc. by complaining to European regulators Thursday that its fiercest rival is an Internet bully that abuses its dominance of online search and advertising.
The allegations against Google crystallize the piecemeal gripes that Microsof
t has been making about Google’s business practices for the past few years. It’s also an ironic twist for Microsoft, whose control over how software operates on most personal computers has made it a frequent target of the types of complaints it’s now making against Google.
This marks the first time that Microsoft has lodged a formal antitrust complaint with a government agency against one of its own rivals.
In doing so, Microsoft hopes to encourage the European Commission to dig deeper into an investigation opened four months ago into Google’s business practices.
The European inquiry was spurred by complaints made by several smaller websites. They contended Google was unfairly burying them in search results and highlighting the company’s own services instead.
The sites behind the initial complaints included Ciao, an online-shopping site owned by Microsoft, and Foundem, a price-comparison site that belongs to a technology trade association backed by Microsoft.
Given that, Google said Microsoft’s latest complaint was unsurprising.
“We continue to discuss the case with the European Commission, and we’re happy to explain to anyone how our business works,” Google spokesman Al Verney said.
Although the specifics of Thursday’s European complaint were confidential, Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith outlined the basics in a blog posting.
Microsoft has made most of these accusations before in public statements or forums.
It contends Google is making it difficult for mobile phones that rely on its Windows software to view Google’s YouTube video site. Google is promoting its own phones software, Android, and has been accommodating with Apple Inc.’s iPhone, according to Microsoft. Google CEO Eric Schmidt was on Apple’s board when the iPhone was introduced in 2007.
Microsoft also accused Google of making it difficult for advertisers to transfer their data used to manage online marketing campaigns to rival search engines. And Microsoft said Google has programmed its search formulas in ways that drive up prices that its rivals have to spend to buy ads shown alongside Google’s search results.
The complaint also paints Google as a hypocrite. Microsoft says Google has made it increasingly difficult for Microsoft’s Bing and other search engines to index the videos on YouTube, an apparent contradiction to Google’s crusade to make content openly accessible.
Google has been particularly critical of Facebook’s refusal to open up data within its social network. Microsoft owns a 1.6 percent stake in Facebook, and Bing has been granted better access to Facebook profiles.
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