Microsoft on Thursday formally joined the EU antitrust complaint against Google, accusing the search giant of restricting access to YouTube, content from book publishers, advertiser data, and more.
Specifically, Microsoft filed a complaint with the European Commission as part of its ongoing investigation into whether Google violated European competition law.
"Google has done much to advance its laudable mission to 'organize the world's information,' but we're concerned by a broadening pattern of conduct aimed at stopping anyone else from creating a competitive alternative," Brad Smith, Microsoft's senior vice president and general counsel, wrote in a blog post.
The debate dates back to February 2010, when Google announced that the European Commission had received complaints from three companies about "whether Google is doing anything to choke off competition or hurt our users and partners." Those companies were Foundem, ejustice.fr, and Ciao! from Bing. Julia Holtz, Google's competition counsel, said at the time that two of the companies - Ciao! from Bing, a Microsoft acquisition; and Foundem - had ties to rival Microsoft. Ciao was purchased by Microsoft in 2008. Last month, 1plusV, a parent company of eJustice.fr, joined the complaint.
In its complaint, Microsoft had about a half dozen concerns, including access to Google-owned YouTube for Bing and other search engines.
Since Google acquired YouTube in 2006, "it has put in place a growing number of technical measures to restrict competing search engines from properly accessing it for their search results," Smith said. "Without proper access to YouTube, Bing and other search engines cannot stand with Google on an equal footing in returning search results with links to YouTube videos and that, of course, drives more users away from competitors and to Google."
Phones running Microsoft's Windows Phone platform do not operate properly with YouTube, Smith said. "Microsoft's YouTube 'app' on Windows Phones is basically just a browser displaying YouTube's mobile Web site, without the rich functionality offered on competing phones."
Microsoft also took issue with Google's digital book effort. "Under Google's plan only its search engine would be able to return search results from these books," Smith wrote, pointing to a recent court decision that overturned Google's 2008 e-book agreement.
That decision is "an important initial step" in the U.S., but it needs to be reinforced in Europe as well, Smith argued.
Microsoft also accused Google of banning advertisers from using their data in an interoperable way with other search advertising platforms. "This makes it much more costly for Google's advertisers to run portions of their campaigns with any competitor, and thus less likely that they will do so," Smith said.
He also argued that Google contractually blocks leading Web sites in Europe from distributing competing search boxes, making it "difficult for competing search engines to gain users when nearly every search box is powered by Google."
Smith also acknowledged the irony of Microsoft asking the EU for help in antitrust matters when Microsoft spent many years locked in its own antitrust battle with the European body.
"Having spent more than a decade wearing the shoe on the other foot with the European Commission, the filing of a formal antitrust complaint is not something we take lightly," he wrote. "This is the first time Microsoft Corporation has ever taken this step. More so than most, we recognize the importance of ensuring that competition laws remain balanced and that technology innovation moves forward."
"We're not surprised that Microsoft has done this, since one of their subsidiaries was one of the original complainants," Google said in a statement. "For our part, we continue to discuss the case with the European Commission and we're happy to explain to anyone how our business works."
Editor's Note: This story was updated at 10:30am Eastern with comment from Google.