14 DAY TRIAL // The reason why Google has accused Microsoft of unfair practices seems to be related more to the latest defeat suffered by the search engine, and not by the default setting in Internet Explorer 7.
After countless battles lost on the online realm, the software giant has scored an important victory against the Mountain View company, Amazon recently dropping the Google technology for the Windows Live one.
A9 Chief Executive David Tennenhouse told the Reuters news agency that Windows Live presented a "very interesting, powerful Web search option".
A9 got rid on Sunday of the online leader's technology, at that date, the contract between Amazon and Google having expired.
The decision of the largest online retailer comes shortly after Google complained that Internet Explorer 7 has MSN as its default searching option.
"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," Marissa Mayer, the vice president for search products at Google, told The New York Times.
Microsoft's executives are thrilled by this, especially since the Live brand is new and in need of a lot of support in order to deal with the fierce competition on the online search market.
"It's another opportunity to reach a new segment for us and get people acquainted with the Windows Live search brand," Justin Osmer, Senior product manager at Microsoft's MSN Internet unit, told the same news agency.
Senior product manager at Microsoft's MSN Internet unit, Justin Osmer, confirmed that Google's contract with Amazon.com had expired, but did not elaborate on what was behind the switch.