Microsoft Wages War Against Google-Yahoo Ad Deal in Washington

Appealing to lawmakers to try to squash deal

[Marcia]

Microsoft's war [money.cnn.com] against Google

The company is on a mission to derail or delay Google's deal to outsource a portion of its ads on Yahoo. The company says it's still interested in buying just Yahoo's search business. Microsoft has deployed its lawyers and Washington staff to meet with lawmakers to discuss how Google will monopolize search advertising and drive up prices through its new Yahoo partnership.

[marketingmagic]

Instead of whinning, and wasting money on all this, why doesn't MS just work on creating a better site? Fix their search engine, and advertise the heck out of it.

You really have to wonder about the brains behind the wheel here.

[Murdoch]

Microsoft is quickly becoming the Paris Hilton of software companies.

If money won't solve the problem, maybe infamy and hobnobbing will at least screw things up for the other guy.

It's classic 'Kids on the Playground Jealousy' syndrome, but did we really expect anything different?

[rogerd]

Don't forget that Microsoft itself has been the target of intense lobbying efforts by its competitors over the years. Perhaps they learned from that experience - dominating the technical playing field isn't enough to win if the other side can deploy regulators.

[mikedee]

Microsofts lobbying makes other companies look like they are stingy. I highly doubt that any of Microsofts competitors spend more than them on lobbying.

Microsoft's budget for political lobbying exceeded that of Enron, the judge residing over the antitrust case has heard.

[news.zdnet.com...]

Microsoft are well known for redefining (and benefiting from) tech lobbying. I suppose that money pays for cases like this one.

[Marcia]

Microsoft has deployed its lawyers and Washington staff to meet with lawmakers to discuss how Google will monopolize search advertising and drive up prices through its new Yahoo partnership.

It probably will drive prices up, and where else are advertisers to go? Then that in turn means that advertisers will have to raise prices to be able to absorb increased marketing costs. Sounds like increased inflation to me, not a pleasant prospect in a slow economy.

Too bad advertisers don't have lobbying clout.

[edited by: Marcia at 4:45 pm (utc) on June 26, 2008]

[swa66]

MSFT the bully in this game, not the victim. Moreover they were going to do an "independent strategy", seems they have trouble coming up with one (but we'd not expect MSFT to be innovative in any way that makes a difference after they made Flight Simulator anyway).

Had they not started messing things up, Yahoo! would not have sought up Google. MSFT only has themselves to blame.

[saxman]

I agree with "marketingmagic". I said for years now that it just doesn't make any sense that they keep trying to buy their way into the game.

MS... you know you have the man power and the brains to get it done. Why don't you just do t already and quit crying about Google and Yahoo going to bed together. You tried and lost, so what do you do now? Get off your butt and make your Search Engine better. Sometimes you have to spend money to make it. I personally think that you guys are more worried about getting an immediate ROI for everything you try to do instead of sticking with it and improving your existing products. Your Search Engine and your AdCenter are both no good. Fix them and people will come!