Microsoft and Google end six-year truce in legal battles

Microsoft and Google have ended a nearly six-year truce to avoid an open war between rival Big Tech companies, paving the way for direct conflict, as regulators point to barriers to competition between major U.S. technology groups .

The software and Internet search giants came up with one unusual pact in 2015 to end a running battle that had been fought in courtrooms and in front of regulators around the world. It was forged shortly after Sundar Pichai became CEO of Google and Satya Nadella took over the reins of Microsoft.

The companies resolved pending lawsuits and agreed not to litigate or complain to each other before regulators without first attempting to resolve disagreements at the highest internal level, according to two people familiar with the terms.

The pact also sought to bring cooperation closer together areas of mutual commercial interest – although people close to the two companies have stated that they did nothing to soften direct competition in markets, including cloud computing and online productivity applications.

The agreement to abandon some of the weapons that technology groups had used against each other sparked questions about some impacts on competition.

The tricks Microsoft played on Google hurt the entire industry, including Microsoft

“It’s always a little disconcerting to see direct competitors working on private agreements,” Eric Goldman, a law professor at the University of Santa Clara, said of the 2015 pact. “used by both parties seemed to be a way to end destructive rivalry without necessarily weakening competition.

“The tricks Microsoft was playing on Google hurt the entire industry, including Microsoft,” Goldman added.

In one of his most notorious charges, the software company posted a series of attack ads called “Scroogled“He accused Google of using techniques to increase its profits by” screwing “its users.

The pact expired in mid-April, when both sides decided not to renew it, according to people familiar with the situation. The decision to let it expire was as follows regulators around the world they try to challenge practices that may have been consolidated by major technology companies and prevent more open competition.

There had already been renewed signs of the rivalry returning to public dispute. Brad Smith, President of Microsoft, came out stridently against Google facing threat to withdraw search service in Australia instead of bowing to law pay news editors by content, including testimony before Congress in March.

In a recent interview with Bloomberg TV, Smith also complained that Google had “turned a deaf ear” to Microsoft’s requests because dominant digital advertising services interoperable with other companies, which would make the industry more competitive.

The ad number that appears on lawsuit than Colorado and several other U.S. states filed lawsuits against Google in December. Microsoft did not want to comment on whether it had pressured regulators on the issue.

Some people within Microsoft believed the pact had been more beneficial to Google than to the software company, according to someone familiar with the company’s thinking.

Microsoft’s willingness to put out Google’s fire also came at a time when the search company’s business practices were examining regulation around the world. Microsoft, by contrast, has not appeared in antitrust investigations into Big Tech groups, although last week it became only the second-largest technology company, after Apple, which was valued at more than $ 2 million.

Still, attempts at closer business cooperation between companies have not yielded some of the benefits Microsoft had sought. These include finding ways to run mobile apps created for Google’s Android operating system on Windows personal computers, which would help offset some of Microsoft’s weaknesses in the smartphone industry and provide a bulwark against Apple.