Bloomberg Mysteriously Pulls Anti-Microsoft Article

This article mysteriously disapeared from Bloomberg shortly after it was published.

I wonder why?

STLtoday - Business - Manufacturing & Technology

Microsoft faces antitrust challenge on Windows Vista operating system
By James Rowley
BLOOMBERG NEWS
06/12/2007

Antitrust officials may demand that Microsoft Corp. change its Windows Vista operating system to address a complaint that the program's design hurts competing software, said Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal.

Google Inc., the owner of the most used Internet search engine, complained in a statement that its desktop search program doesn't perform properly on Vista, the latest version of the Windows operating system that runs about 95 percent of the world's personal computers.

"We are at a turning point in deciding how to go forward in assessing whether Microsoft is willing to modify Windows Vista to make it accessible to competing software," Blumenthal said. He declined to discuss the content of a written complaint against Microsoft that sparked the latest antitrust inquiry.

Government officials are studying whether Microsoft violated the 2001 consent decree that settled a landmark government antitrust suit against Microsoft, Blumenthal said. Most of the decree expires in November. It bars Microsoft from taking steps to disadvantage desktop software made by rival companies, such as RealNetworks Inc.'s media player.

While Microsoft doesn't "believe there are any compliance concerns," company spokesman Jack Evans said in an e-mail, "we are committed to going the extra mile to resolve the issue."

Google's search users outnumber Microsoft's by more than 5 to 1, and Microsoft has sought to narrow that gap for the last four years. Microsoft built its new desktop search to keep Google's similar program from taking over that market too.

"Microsoft's current approach with Vista desktop search violates the consent decree and limits consumer choice," Google spokesman Ricardo Reyes said in an e-mail. There is "no way for consumers to choose an alternate provider" to search the computer hard drive, and "Vista makes it impractical to turn off Microsoft's search index," he said.

In December 2004, Microsoft upgraded its search program and posted an improved version on the Internet, which consumers could download. This program was bundled into Vista.

Evans said the company showed the new search function to antitrust enforcers, who didn't object before the operating system was released to consumers on Jan. 30.

Microsoft doesn't intend to link to Google's desktop search from Vista because the company has found the product doesn't appropriately respect the privacy of a user's information, Evans said.

The current matter underscores one of the problems with the consent decree, said Herbert Hovenkamp, who teaches antitrust law at the University of Iowa and has consulted on the case in the past for the states.

The settlement "preserves the monopoly and regulates it," he said. "You're just asking for more litigation and ongoing complaints."