Monday, March 17,2008 @ 9:55am
Google: MS/Yahoo would hurt open Internet
A successful Microsoft takeover of Yahoo could potentially impact the open nature of the Internet, Google chief Eric Schmidt said today. The head of the search engine giant is "concerned" that Microsoft's ownership would result in the use of proprietary technology and curb a diverse market that comes from web standards that work in any device or browser.
"We would hope that anything they did would be consistent with the openness of the Internet, but I doubt it would be," Schmidt said.
He pointed in particular to Microsoft's historical practices, which have included Windows-only web technologies such as its ActiveX plug-in and an emphasis on its own media formats, such as Windows Media. The company has since partly backed away from this stance and stressed the cross-platform nature of technologies such as Silverlight, whose animation and app code works on Linux and Mac systems as well as Windows.
The European Commission recently issued a $1.4 billion fine to Microsoft for its reported failure to properly publish documentation that would help competitors develop Windows software that works as well as Microsoft's own products, which until recently have used functions only Microsoft itself could easily access. Before the fine, Microsoft agreed to public documentation for Office and Windows, partly as a response to European pressure.