Google has gained one new antitrust investigation and had another one withdrawn all in the span of one week. Microsoft officially withdrew its antitrust complaints against Google, while saying the company is “changing legal priorities”.
Microsoft’s long-standing antitrust complaints date back to 2011, which was when Microsoft filed a formal complaint with the EU. Microsoft’s complaint was that Google was favoring it’s own properties in organic search results. Also in the complaint was an issue with the fact that third-party search engines are not able to search through and index anything from YouTube.
This may come as a relief to Google, who settled similar complaints with the European Commission in 2014 suggesting that the company favors its own properties in search results. In addition, it may also be a relief because Google is still facing another set of antitrust complaints at the moment. The European Commission alleges google is abusing it’s position as market leader due to the fact that Android phones come preloaded with Google apps
Microsoft is not without its own woes, with its revenue declining from underperforming PC sales, and the bad PR it has received lately with respect to Windows 10. Considering what both Google and Microsoft are up against at the moment, perhaps it’s best for the two companies to put this issue aside.
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