Web Trends - Google Fears IE7

Google Fears IE7

by Jason Hahn

A story in the New York Times on Monday indicated that Google was talking to the U.S. Justice Department and the European Commission about Microsoft’s beta version of Internet Explorer 7. According to Google representatives, the default search engine for IE7 is MSN Search. This default engine appears in the top-right corner of the window, where there is a search box, a first for Internet Explorer.

Steve Langdon, a spokesman for Google, said that in their discussions with EC, “we have expressed our concerns that Microsoft’s approach to setting search defaults in IE 7.0 benefits Microsoft while taking away choice from users.”

This claim could be misleading. It seems that rather than just setting the default search engine as MSN Search, IE7 is just reading the user’s Windows System Registry. For example, this means that if a user upgraded from IE6, and if MSN Search was the default search engine in the IE6 search bar, then MSN Search will be the default search engine in IE7s search bar. If the default engine in IE6 was Google, then Google will be the default engine in IE7. If a default was not selected for IE6, MSN Search will be the default engine of choice for IE7.

Vice president for search products at Google, Marissa Mayer, said that “The market favors open choice for search, and companies should compete for users based on the quality of their search services. We don’t think it’s right for Microsoft to just set the default to MSN. We believe users should choose.”

This appears to be an example of the pot calling the kettle black. In other words, it is a bit humorous to see Google making these claims when Google itself has exclusive rights as the default search engine for both Mozilla’s Firefox and Opera’s Opera browsers.

It comes as no real surprise, seeing that this new threat combined with Microsoft’s upcoming adCenter could cut into Google’s dominating revenue which it derives almost wholly from its search engine business.

Sources:

http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/05/01/is_microsoft_
playing_monopoly_with_ie7_search/

http://www.webpronews.com/insiderreports/
searchinsider/wpn-49-20060501GoogleComplains
ToFedsAboutIE7.html

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000085&
sid=af1GNF4h6Z4M&refer=europe

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Jason Hahn
e: jhahn221@gmail.com

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IE7 should be banned, period! I am a "beta" tester for this piece of junk that never should have let out of the lab. It's the worst thing that Microsoft has put out since Windows 3.0.

Many websites won't come up with it (especially those using frames or XML). Most plugins that work well and play nicely with IE6 will not plug in. It's supposed to be "tabbed", new windows showing as a tab at the top, rather than a new instance of IE...about half the time it will launch a new instance and close the first one (that has 6 tabs open).

Oh, you can't uninstall it or return to IE6. I went back to a checkpoint in XP prior to my installing it...it's still there!

Posted by: Walker Date: May 04, 2006
URL: http://ca.geocities.com/vladilyich/
19953

Stop complaing about IE7 Walker. The browser is great even though I prefer opera over all other ones.

For google to try to change what the default search is is very funy to me. Plus, when I installed IE7 and went to google, they instantly told me to change my default search to google. If they have dedicated visitors like it appears, when vista comes out they shouldn't have any problems mainting their spot in search. As for Microsoft, they need to spend more of that money on creating effective applications and do something with their search.

Posted by: Adrian Wilson Date: May 04, 2006
URL: http://www.tdnetworks.com
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