• by Shankar Gupta , May 2, 2006

With the search battle between MSN and Google heating up, the search giant has been appealing to lawmakers in the United States and Europe to keep a close eye on Microsoft's new browser, Internet Explorer 7, which carries a built-in search tool that defaults to MSN's search engine.

Google claims that a built-in search toolbar would be anti-competitive, giving MSN search an unfair advantage over other search engines. "We don't think it's right for Microsoft to just set the default to MSN. We believe users should choose," Marissa Mayer, Google vice president for search products, said in an e-mail to OnlineMediaDaily.

The search giant has not yet filed any formal antitrust complaints with the U.S. Department of Justice or the European Commission overseas, but is leaving that option open, according to a Google spokesman. Google's lobbying efforts were first reported Monday by The New York Times.

The European Commission is currently investigating whether Microsoft's Windows Vista--the new Microsoft operating system set to launch next January, which carries a bundled version of Internet Explorer 7--raises antitrust issues.

Google's worries over Microsoft's browser dominion have a solid basis in dot-com history. In the 1990s, the Redmond software giant bundled Internet Explorer with Windows, and used its massive operating system market share to drive competitor Netscape's browser market share into the single digits.

Monday, Microsoft defended the integration between its search engine and the latest version of its latest browser--now in beta testing--saying that consumers could easily change the default settings. "We have developed the new version of Internet Explorer around the guiding principle that the user is in control and can easily choose the search provider they want to use," a Microsoft spokeswoman said. "Microsoft is fully committed to supporting search options, and we have worked closely with others in the industry to ensure that adding to and modifying the list of search providers and choosing a default provider is easy, safe, and open."

Meanwhile, Google has been heavily promoting Firefox--which itself defaults to Google's search engine. Google last week ran an ad for Firefox on the main Google search page. Google also includes Firefox in Google Pack, a software bundle of Google and non-Google applications.

A Google spokesman said that Firefox's default to Google was different from Internet Explorer's default to MSN, because users appeared to be more adept at changing the Firefox settings. The spokesman said a recent study contracted by Google, which found that 75 percent of users could change the default search engine for Firefox, compared to only 33 percent for Internet Explorer 7.

Meanwhile, Microsoft this weekend gained some ground on Google in search, thanks to Amazon, which started using MSN to power search on A9. Previously, Google powered A9 search.