Microsoft Bangs the Antitrust Drum Against Google
The sprawling fight between Google and Microsoft has spilled into a state courthouse in Ohio, where Google's lawyers will be in court next week to answer an antitrust lawsuit by a small online-mall, myTriggers.com.
Google sued myTriggers for non-payment of roughly $350,000 in online-advertising fees. MyTriggers, which allows consumers to compare online prices for such items as office supplies, DVDs, and auto-parts, counter-sued, claiming violation of state antitrust laws.
Significantly, myTriggers' lawyers include a prominent state attorney, Stanley Chesley, as well as Rick Rule, the chief antitrust lawyer for New York-based Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, who also has served for many years as an antitrust lawyer for Microsoft.
The antitrust claim argues Google illegally used its market power to raise myTriggers' online advertising rates above what the company could pay, and the firm's business "fell off a cliff," Jonathan Kanter, a Washington-based antitrust lawyer for Cadwalader, said.
At next week's court hearing, the parties will meet with a judge to set a schedule for the counter-suit, which could result in an extensive legal inquiry into Google's closely-held business tactics and software models. That inquiry may yield evidence of antitrust violations. If so, the evidence would greatly boost Microsoft's efforts to jump-start a federal antitrust lawsuit of Google. The evidence may, or may not, show that Google adjusts its closely-held advertising-prices to help allies and hurt rivals.
Microsoft also may gain from another lawsuit, in which Viacom sued Google's YouTube subsidiary for copyright violations. U.S. federal Judge Louis Stanton agreed to release voluminous documents and statements from the $1 billion lawsuit (See related story).
Microsoft has much experience with antitrust charges. It was sued in May 1998 by officials in President Bill Clinton's Justice Department, who were supported by Microsoft's rivals in the high-tech sector. Microsoft's top managers evaded a potential court-ordered breakup and negotiated a settlement in November 2001. But the ordeal knocked the company off stride for several years, and helped upstarts, such as Google, establish themselves in the high-tech economy. These days, Microsoft officials are working to initiate an antitrust investigation by President Obama's Justice Department against Google.
These efforts to release Google's private information are part of a larger campaign by Microsoft's advocates to use antitrust law against Google. The latest salvo came Wednesday when Mary Snapp, Microsoft's deputy general counsel, told advertising executives that Google uses its dominant position to force companies "to pay inflated prices" for online advertising, and to deter them from placing advertisements on Microsoft's networks.
Google spokesman Adam Kovacevich said Wednesday that the firm works "hard to compete fair and square, and our policies are intended to provide users with the most relevant results possible, and give advertisers the best possible return on their investment."
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