Microsoft publicly accused rival tech company Google of running “shadow campaigns” to discredit the competition to EU regulators. The accusations include funding a fake grassroots campaign to “mislead the public.”
“I’ve taken pains to tell the truth, even when that might make things more complicated for Microsoft,” Microsoft’s Deputy General Counsel Rima Alaily wrote in a blog post. “It’s not comfortable or natural for me to pen something critical of someone else, but in this case, I think it’s important because it concerns me when someone attacks us and, I believe, does so dishonestly.”
Microsoft claims Google hired an advisory firm to set up “an astroturf group” called the Open Cloud Coalition that is set to launch this week. A flyer linked in Microsoft’s blog post says it is a group of cloud platforms “being formed to advocate for a fair, competitive and open cloud services industry across the UK and EU.”
“It is designed to discredit Microsoft with competition authorities, and policymakers and mislead the public,” Alaily wrote. “Google has gone through great lengths to obfuscate its involvement, funding, and control, most notably by recruiting a handful of European cloud providers, to serve as the public face of the new organization.”
Alaily says Microsoft found out about the scheme from a company that chose not to join the Open Cloud Coalition.
“One of the companies approached, who ultimately declined, told us that the organization will be directed and largely funded by Google for the purpose of attacking Microsoft’s cloud computing business in the European Union and the United Kingdom,” Alaily said.
Google ranks third globally in the cloud market behind Amazon and Microsoft and has made multiple attempts to paint Microsoft as anti-competitive in the space.
“We’ve been very public about our concerns with Microsoft’s cloud licensing,” a Google Cloud spokesperson told Straight Arrow News in an email. “We and many others believe that Microsoft’s anticompetitive practices lock-in customers and create negative downstream effects that impact cybersecurity, innovation, and choice. You can read more in our many blog posts on these issues.”
In September, the search giant filed an antitrust complaint with the European Commission, accusing Microsoft of unfair licensing contracts. This comes after Microsoft settled with an industry group over similar concerns. Microsoft says Google tried to derail that settlement before filing this complaint.
“We’ve been speaking to many business and public sector organizations,” Google Cloud’s Head of Platforms Amit Zavery said in September. “What we’re seeing is a lot of restrictions Microsoft has created using their dominance in the on-premises software and not letting customers have a choice of moving that workload to any cloud provider of their choice.”
It’s not the first time Microsoft has faced criticism for bundling items and forcing users to adopt their products. The landmark antitrust case against Microsoft in the 1990s ruled Microsoft acted like a monopoly by restricting the ability to remove Internet Explorer and use other programs to surf the web. Microsoft avoided getting broken up on appeal and settled the case in 2001.
Meanwhile, Google is making the most antitrust headlines of late. The company lost antitrust cases over search practices and its app store and is currently fighting a case over its advertising business. The Justice Department is weighing whether to ask the federal court to break up Google to settle its monopoly issue.
Microsoft says Google is attacking it to “distract from the intense regulatory scrutiny Google is facing around the world.”
