Google wants court supervision of Microsoft to continue

In 2000, a federal judge had found that Microsoft had committed a violation of federal anti-trust law; forcing PC makers to use Microsoft software products on the computers sold by them as opposed to similar software made by other software makers. In a massive scare to the company, the federal judge had ordered the breakup of the company. The part about breaking up of the company was set aside by an appeals court, and the case went back to district court and a new judge did not order the drastic breakup step. Under the new settlement, Microsoft reached an agreement with the Justice department and nine states which ordered Microsoft to modify licensing and to provide competitors with adequate technical information such that their products would run on the OS as a first-class citizen, equal to Microsoft products.
This agreement was valid for 5 years, but Google wants this agreement to be extended, accusing Microsoft of a repeat behavior with regard to changes in the desktop search function introduced in Vista.

In a filing with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Google (GOOG) asked for permission to file a friend-of-the-court brief outlining its concerns. The filing came on the eve of a regularly scheduled hearing to update U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly on Microsoft's compliance with a federal consent decree. "Microsoft's hardwiring of its own desktop search product into Windows Vista violates the final judgment in this case," Google wrote.
In a filing last week, the Justice Department, 17 states and the District of Columbia detailed changes Microsoft agreed to make to its desktop search function, and said the measures would resolve any issues raised by the complaint. "Microsoft went the extra mile to resolve these issues in a spirit of compromise," Microsoft said in a statement. "The government has clearly stated that it is satisfied with the changes we're making. Google has provided no new information that should suggest otherwise in their filing."

Vista introduced a new search capability in Vista called 'Instant Search' that allowed users to search for items in the hard drive. In April, Google filed a complaint that this prevented other companies from providing their own desktop search function, and in a settlement, Microsoft agreed to make changes to its search function to resolve these issues.
With the change, Microsoft will allow computer manufacturers and end-users to select their own preferred search engine, similar to what is being done for other third-party programs. Google, however, does not believe that Microsoft has really turned a new leaf and wants the settlement period extended so that a check can be kept on whether Microsoft is indeed making the required changes.