Google, Microsoft spar on antitrust

Seeking $335,000 in unpaid advertising bills, Google Inc. filed suit against a small Internet site in Ohio in October. The com- plaint was so routine it was just two sentences long.

Google never expected the response it got. Last month, the small Internet site countered with a 24-page antitrust lawsuit against Google, accusing the search-engine giant of a litany of monopolistic abuses.

But what really caught Google's attention was the Internet site's legal counsel: It was Charles "Rick" Rule, long the chief outside counsel on competition issues for Google archrival Microsoft Corp.

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Internet Explorer 8 makes its world debut

Almost six months after search engine Google launched its Internet Explorer browser Google Chrome, Microsoft on Wednesday launched its Windows Internet Explorer 8. The new browser is available on the Microsoft site, which can be downloaded by customers from 9.30 pm on Thursday (India time).

After two rounds of beta testing by Mircosoft’s and the new Explorer going live, the world of internet browsers is getting crowded with players such as Mozilla Firefox, Apple’s Safari and Google Chrome already competing with each other.

In a bid to recapture it market share, Microsoft said it had included personalised features such as the ‘Accelerators’, ‘Visual Search’ and ‘Web Slices’ to make internet browsing faster and safer. The soft ware vendor claimed that the added features would significantly cut down the number of clicks required to perform the most common tasks on the internet.

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Pressmart says it turned down Google overtures

Hyderabad based Pressmart Media Ltd, a company that generates and maintains e-papers for global and Indian newspapers and magazines, says it has turned down an acquisition bid by Internet search engine firm Google Inc.

Last week, Pressmart raised $6 million (Rs 27.8 crore today) in private equity funding from US-based venture capital companies Draper Fisher Jurvetson and NEA-Indo US Ventures. The company plans to use the funds to open marketing offices in the US, the UK, Singapore and Dubai to expand its international client base.

Pressmart chief executive Sanjiv Gupta said Google executives approached the company in early March, expressing an interest in Pressmart and its licensed technology.

The Hyderabad company owns patented technology for digitizing newspapers and making them searchable on the Internet while preserving the same-as-in-print feel.

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