Microsoft goes to EU over Google ‘search biasing’

Mike Davis, Ovum analyst

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA: Microsoft has accused Google of biasing search results on its internet search engine Google.com in the European Union, where Microsoft is struggling to gain market share, despite the incorporation of the tools from the formerly Norwegian headquartered FAST into its Bing search engine, and at least $1 billion (Ovum estimate) of both development and advertising investment.

So has Google been ‘skewing’ search results? I think the answer is ‘why wouldn’t you?’, given that 97 percent of your income is derived from Internet advertising? And of course this raises the questions ‘don’t you do it too?’ and ‘have you been copying your rival’s search results?’

Is Internet search agnostic and unbiased? – No, it can’t be. Those who provide Internet search engines derive their revenues from the advertisers.

The total value of internet advertising is huge, and this is a territory that both Google and Microsoft need to dominate. Irrespective of the eventual EC adjudication, this war will continue for a long time yet.