The cold war between Google and Microsoft has turned hot (video)

The long-running dispute between Google (GOOG, GOOGL) and Microsoft (MSFT) is once again coming to light.

Google’s latest statement appeared on Wednesday in a complaint submitted to the European Commission, accusing Microsoft of violating EU antitrust law.

In a document provided to Yahoo Finance, Google said Microsoft illegally used its dominant “Windows Server” enterprise server software licenses to force customers to use Microsoft’s cloud computing services.

Microsoft predicted that Google would “fail” in this case, saying it had already addressed similar concerns raised by European cloud providers.

“We expect that Google has not convinced European companies, and neither has the European Commission,” a Microsoft spokesman said.

The new dispute shows “this is a cold war that has turned hot,” Adam Kovacevich, CEO and founder of the technology policy group Chamber of Progress, told Yahoo Finance.

“Rewinded”

The two tech giants have spent the last two decades battling for technology supremacy, from online search and cloud computing to the markets for operating systems, gaming software, online advertising – and now artificial intelligence, or artificial intelligence.

The dispute began in the first decade after Microsoft settled a landmark antitrust case brought by the U.S. Department of Justice in which it accused it of eliminating rivals by making its browser free and the default on its dominant Windows operating system.

The 2002 settlement opened the door to broader competition in the web browser software market and created an opportunity for Google, then a startup founded by Stanford students Sergey Brin and Larry Page, to embark on a period of meteoric growth in the 2000s.

Microsoft defended its reclaimed territory in a series of videos first published in 2011 in which Microsoft lampooned Google with parodies suggesting that Google’s rival Gmail service, Chrome browser and accompanying software lacked quality and privacy.

Titled “Gmail Man,” the video questions Google’s ethics, accusing it of mining every word of Gmail customers’ private emails to target them with ads.

In other videos titled “Scroogled” and “Googlighting” – a parody of the popular 1980s TV series “Moonlighting” – Microsoft questioned whether consumers should trust Google to handle their private information.

In 2016, the companies reached a ceasefire, agreeing to end regulatory complaints against each other around the world, after two new CEOs – Google’s Sundar Pichai and Microsoft’s Satya Nadella – took over.

The pact expired in 2021 as U.S. and EU regulators increased pressure on both companies and Microsoft complained that Google used unfair tactics to compete in search and online advertising.

“You brush your teeth and search on Google”

Things really got ugly last year during a high-profile antitrust trial that pitted Google against the U.S. Department of Justice. The case alleged that Google had illegally monopolized the Internet search market and was reminiscent of a case brought by the Department of Justice against Microsoft in the 1990s.

The most prominent witness testifying against Google was Nadella, who did not hesitate to shoot his rival on the stand.

“You get up in the morning, brush your teeth and search on Google,” Nadella said, emphasizing Google’s clear dominance in the search engine market.

Nadella said Microsoft’s search engine, Bing, has not gained popularity because Google has negotiated for Google Search to get the default placement on browsers, desktop computers and mobile devices such as Apple’s iPhones and iPads and the company’s Android smartphones Samsung and others.

Nadella described the imbalance as a “vicious cycle” that he feared would worsen as artificial intelligence develops.

Google lost the case with a judge ruling that its search engine business was an illegal monopoly. The resolution is currently awaiting the corrective phase, which may result in the collapse of the Google empire.

Kovacevich said Microsoft certainly had a lot to gain from Google’s failure.

“They were probably the main instigator of the U.S. Department of Justice antitrust lawsuit against Google,” Kovacevich said. “And a conviction against Google will likely benefit Microsoft Bing most of all.”

Microsoft is taking a similar approach in its next antitrust lawsuit against Google, which is still in its early trial phase. He argues that Google’s control over online advertising technologies has harmed the success of its Bing browser.

A new dispute before the EU

It is unclear whether the EU will take up Google’s latest attack on Microsoft’s cloud computing rules.

Google argues that Microsoft charged customers a 400 percent markup to migrate Windows Server licenses to a competing cloud service, while customers who chose Microsoft’s cloud service, Azure, could migrate “essentially for free.”

Based on its argument, Google is using the same type of “tying” or “tying” claims used in the 1998 case against Microsoft brought by the Department of Justice.

US prosecutors then accused Microsoft of illegally monopolizing the market for personal computer operating systems by using the Windows operating system to give away the Internet Explorer browser for free.

This move merged the browser with Windows, which ultimately eliminated the competing browser Netscape Navigator.

Ultimately, Microsoft was required to open Windows to third-party software, which allowed companies including Google to “collaborate” or run browser and search software on computers with Microsoft processors.

Currently, in the cloud computing market, Google argues that Microsoft used its “dominance in one market to prevent merit competition in a separate, unrelated market,” according to a document shared with Yahoo Finance.

Alexis Keenan is a legal reporter at Yahoo Finance. Follow Alexis on X @alexiskweed.

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