Slashdot Log In
Microsoft To Change Desktop Search After Google Complaint
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Wed Jun 20, 2007 01:20 PM
from the we-didn't-mean-it-honest dept.
from the we-didn't-mean-it-honest dept.
Raver32 writes to tell us that Microsoft will be making changes to their desktop search tool in Vista after a 49-page antitrust complaint was filed by Google. "Microsoft initially dismissed the allegations, saying regulators had reviewed the program before Vista launched. However, Brad Smith, Microsoft's general counsel, said in an interview last week that the company was willing to make changes if necessary."
Related Stories
[+]
Technology: Google Says Vista Search Changes Not Enough 282 comments
akkarin writes "Following Google's complaint to Microsoft regarding Vista's 'desktop search,'
Google claims that Vista's search has not changed enough: 'Google said yesterday that the remedies don't go far enough. Google chief legal officer David Drummond said in a statement, "We are pleased that as a result of Google's request that the consent decree be enforced, the Department of Justice and state attorneys general have required Microsoft to make changes to Vista."'"
[+]
Your Rights Online: Google Calls For More Limits On Microsoft 270 comments
teh_commodore writes "Scientific American is reporting that Google is now asking a Federal judge to extend the government's anti-trust oversight of Microsoft, specifically with regard to desktop search software. Microsoft had already agreed to modify Vista to allow rival desktop search engines, but Google says that this remedy will come too late — specifically, after (most of) the anti-trust agreement expires in November. What makes this political maneuver interesting is that Google went over the heads of the Department of Justice and US state regulators, who had found Microsoft's compromise acceptable, to appeal directly to the Federal judge overseeing the anti-trust settlement." Update: 06/26 17:20 GMT by KD : The judge is unwilling to play along with Google; she said she will likely defer to an agreement on desktop search forged between Microsoft and the plaintiffs in the case: i.e. Justice and the states.
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
Wow! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Wow! (Score:4, Insightful)
why dont people sue apple for Spotlight?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
well do you really expect anyone to integrate a third party search into their OS?
If they want to conduct business in a country where I'm a voter....well, yes, I indeed expect them to do whatever the hell I want them to do. If they choose to do things that don't benefit me, I have the right to elect leaders that make and prosecute laws that prevent them from continuing it. Luckily, many of those laws are already in place since the days when Standard Oil, AT&T and others tried to abuse their respective monopolies.
why dont people sue apple for Spotlight?
Apple hasn't been been convicted as a monopolist. Also Google searc
Re:Wow! (Score:4, Informative)
If you don't like the way a company does business, just don't buy their product.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Wow! (Score:5, Funny)
Newswire - 21st June, 2017
Microsoft (Nasdaq:MSFT) has announced they will be bundling the Linux kernel with Windows as an alternative to their own, after a 490-page antitrust complaint was filed by the Linux foundation. "We are extremely pleased with this development", Linux kernel BDFL Linus Torvalds was quoted as saying. "For too long have Microsoft been able to get away with forcefully bundling the NT kernel with their OS, forcing other products out of the market in clear violation of antitrust law as it applies to convicted monopolists. No longer!"
This development is not without precedent. After the original case in 2007 forced Microsoft to offer alternative hard drive search tools with the OS, a ruling in 2009 following an antitrust complaint by Stephen Oberholtzer had them bundling an an alternative [worsethanfailure.com] to the Windows calculator. By 2014, after the famous Litestep case had Windows presenting the user with a choice of window managers on first boot, some have said this step was inevitable.
Asked whether there was any truth in the rumours that Richard Stallman was secretly preparing a dossier to set out the case that Microsoft had failed to offer enough choice to the consumer with regard to product names that feature recursive acronyms and references to Flanders and Swann, he declined to comment.
Parent
Re:Wow! (Score:5, Interesting)
Part of the problem is that the lines are being blurred between file explorer and internet explorer, and search and OS search. As terms and concepts we all took for granted when the agreements were written get redefined to mean something entirely different -- previous legal settlements that were based on those concepts may also get called into question and redefined as well.
Parent
Re:Wow! (Score:5, Informative)
They actually had a powerful search capability since NT4. It was not well exposed in GUI and was not running by default. It was called Indexing Service. Current Vista Search is modified Indexing Service + GUI. It was even done by the same team.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I think the problem is WHY they're doing things (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, that's not ALL we're talking about. Remember, this was an MS-made replacement for Google's desktop search and Microsoft only made it AFTER seeing Google's product, at which point they merged it into Windows at a fairly deep level.
Rubbish. Microsoft first said Vista (Longhorn at the time) would have "Desktop Search" a year before before Google's first GD beta (and two years before Apple released Spotlight). Further, they'd been talking about the broad concept since at least the mid 90s.
In other words, I don't really care what they put into their OS, but WHY they put it in there: to kill off competitors (Google) and their products.
The idea that it was a "response" to Google's product (and hence some deliberate, targeted attack), doesn't even pass the laugh test.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Sounds like a monopoly control to me, just a REALLY TINY one.
Re:Wow!..Not so much (Score:5, Informative)
Here Microsoft is using their Desktop monopoly to boost their online search business and (this is the illegal part) restricting their monopoly product from using someone else's online search business.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It is clear cut in this case.
MS didn't provide this feature in their OS.
Admittedly, they should have done so decades ago, but they didn't need to because they have a monopoly, and developing features for customers costs money. Instead, third parties, including Google, invested time and effort to provide the feature to Microsoft vict\\\\ customers, and by doing so added value to the W
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
MS didn't provide this feature in their OS.
Microsoft have been providing some form of search in their OS since at least Windows 95. Since DOS 1.0, if you consider dir [/s] *file* a "search" (and given how many people seem to consider find / -name "*file" a "search", that's not unreasonable).
The indexing searching of Vista is a clear and predictable evolution of functionality that's been present in Windows since before Google even existed.
Admittedly, they should have done so decades ago, but they didn'
Let me guess... (Score:4, Insightful)
( "what? We did it because we were told to! Not our fault your desktop is all broke now!" )
Okay, so prolly not like that. But seriously; they could've avoided the bad PR by just responding to a quiet request in the first place, instead of being pushed into it... as usual.
I realize there's prolly some sort of 'we only do it when we have to' mentality prevalent in Redmond, but when is someone there going to realize that maybe, you know, they can take a chance and do The Right Thing - when the asking is being done quietly and politely, and not finally and grudgingly do it later when there's a big fat lawsuit or four hanging over their heads?
I know, I know... but I still have some small bit of dreamer left in me.
Re: (Score:2)
Talk about being given the red carpet treatment. This company is given a PASS at every tur
Re:Let me guess... (Score:4, Insightful)
This is one I'm disappointed MS caved on. Google is doing little more than using the court to proactively hurt competitors, something most people here are usually against.
Parent
Re:Let me guess... (Score:5, Insightful)
Any application installer can disable the builtin search. This was discussed extensively previously - "GDS has noted that Indexing Service is on, and this will hamper performance. Would you like to disable?" Seems pretty straightforward. After all, the hooks to disable Indexing Service are publicly available and work.
Or should the WDS facility seek out other Desktop Search apps and disable itself if it finds something running? No. If you mean "Search" on the Start Menu, that's fairly encroaching. What next? Should the entirety of the OS be extensible? (Well, it should, but you know what I mean) Should there be an integral API allowing anyone to hook anything into anything? Filesystem? Maybe a competitor could release a new kernel for Vista, should that be allowed to hook into the UI?
Show me how GDS is prevented from running? Oh, it's impeded from running at full performance? Guess what, so is Indexing Service. GDS is a user's choice to install? Guess what, the user can also uninstall Indexing Service. That Google have chosen to seek (questionable) legal redress for what is clearly a simple issue to resolve (and one that DEFINITELY would have come up in any usability testing) speaks volumes.
FUD. For one, it doesn't slow down the OS per se. It slows down the indexing system of two separate applications. GDS and Indexing Service. MS isn't spinning it to say "GDS is slowing down your OS, get rid of it". It's simple resourcing.
Off the market? Pardon me while I cry with laughter. Harming competition? I guess you mean by putting in an unremovable, un-disable-able indexing service that slows down a competitors desktop search app. Except, what's that, oh, yes, it IS removable, by USER or by EXPOSED API. And it is disable-able, by USER or by EXPOSED API. Remind me again how you think this should be dealt with.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's interesting to see what they'll do. There's numerous things to do just the thing Google asked. There's at least 4 different ways to stop Vista's search, all accessible by installer software. There's at least 2 different ways to make queries to Vista's search and a way to plugin 3rd party search agents (I don't think this was requested by Google but some were asking this in the previous Slashdot article).
So unless they remove Vista search alltogether, what's there to do? Tell Google's developers how to
Something fishy (Score:4, Interesting)
Also I am reminded of the fights between AOL and MSFT about allowing the PC makers to install additional icons in the desktop touting services that competed with MSN etc back in the Win95/98 time frame. AOL won, but it became irrelevant eventually. Will the scenario repeat? Has google jumped the shark?
Re: (Score:2)
It doesn't really affect MS one way or the other, but I could see it eventually causing problems for some users. Anybody remember trying to help out a friend who let a third party product take over their operating system? Norton. AOL. You get the picture.
49-page? (Score:5, Funny)
1. WHY such an odd (pardon the pun) number of pages?
2. What does it matter? Does anyone think that more pages = better? Did MS' lawyers see the brief and go "Shit guys, it's over 47 pages long. We better settle!"?
Re: (Score:2)
Seven chipmunks, twirling on a branch
Eating lots of sunflowers on my uncle's ranch.
You know. That old children's tale. From. The sea?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Ok, mod me down.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:49-page? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
So (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Are there any counter examples that I should be aware of?
Sadly this so far means nothing... (Score:5, Insightful)
Contrary to the title of the article...
...MS hasnt agreed to do anything...
(Micorsoft,) Please define "if necessary"... is it:
Until such a definition is announced by MS, this statement doesnt mean much of anything - except perhaps as an attempt to make the general public think they are addressing the issue of choice on the public's behalf (as most of the general public will probably read into their statement in the same way that happened when the article title was created).
Just my thoughts on the matter...
-Robert
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Digging into the article (Score:5, Interesting)
From TFA:
The bit most interesting to me was this. Does this mean that Microsoft have done again what they were penalised for in 2000 [dwightsilverman.com]? Two of the restrictions placed upon it then were:
So, I imagine they're back to using the secret API for the Microsoft search, while slowing down the 'official' APIs third parties must use. Although the press item only has one sentence on it, this 'optimisation' issue is as important as Microsoft providing a competing product to Google Desktop Search in my opinion.
I assume the technical information handed over to Google will be details of how to access key parts of Microsoft's hidden-hook goodies?
Sheep (Score:2, Insightful)
Look. MS wrote the OS. MS owns the OS. MS can do whatever they want with it. If that means integrate whatever the **** they want, then piss off. If you don't like it, don't use it. It is not drinking water. Yes, you can live with MS. I don't use Windows, but I will do whatever it takes to make sure MS does not loose this fundamental freedom.
I find it quite unbelievable some people's feelings of entitlement. No, you are not entitled that somebody provide an OS that does wh
Re:Sheep (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
First, IANAL.
Second: two things:
a) This link migth help : http://www.aaxnet.com/editor/edit019.html [aaxnet.com]
Read for example the portion of:
WDS slows down *everything* (Score:3, Interesting)
It creates so much IO load that so far every machine I used it on got down to a crawl once it indexed a couple 100,000 files. I guess that's why they turn it off automatically once any user interaction is noticed. But by then it has consumed so much virtual memory that every other app has to be paged back in slowly. That gets better with 2 GB of memory but not much. Oh well, I guess I need 64bit and 4GB.
It helps to put the index on a different disk than your OS and your page file, but not a lot.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
huh? Last I checked it had the lowest priority and consumed only a max amount of memory, about 30megs worth, it would continue at that pace as long as there was no user activity for five minutes. It doesn't move other apps out of memory or even move them into virtual memory, if the app in question is actually doing something then the indexing service won't run. If the app is question is sitting idle then it has already been moved to virtual memory.
If you install it on an existing machine with lots and lots
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, no, not exactly.
Though I just love locate, this is a wee bit different. For one, these programs index the content of your documents as well, not just their names. As practical as locate is, it only matches your search to the list of names in the database; I cannot search for a document containing some word.
Of course, that's where grep comes in, but then, grep's database is the fscking filesystem, so it may take a while.
Besides, I can teach my father how to use Beagle. I cannot teach him how to grep
KDE Find. (Score:3, Informative)
As practical as locate is, it only matches your search to the list of names in the database; I cannot search for a document containing some word. ... I can teach my father how to use Beagle. I cannot teach him how to grep.
There are dozens of GUI front ends to grep that deliver most of the functionality. One of the easiest to use is the KDE find utility, which can search by content, file dates and all of that. Used in conjunction with a reasonable directory structure, you can get most of the benefits of
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:For those who haven't been following the issue: (Score:5, Informative)
The issue here is that Microsoft does not include a way to turn off its own desktop search
It does. It includes *several* ways to do so. Disable the service, use net stop, use the API.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Use the API? Are you certain that the API provided by MS to third-party developers is the same as the one used my MS's search? As other posters have pointed out, this has been a problem in the past with MS.
Re:Why don't they file against Apple? (Score:5, Informative)
Who the hell modded this "insightful?" First, Apple is not a monopoly, so they cannot illegally leverage that monopoly via bundling, hence there is no legal action that makes sense. Second, Google was not even complaining about the bundling (although they have every right to). They complained about two things:
Apple fits into neither of those categories. Google has an indexed search on OS X and it uses the same API and hooks as Spotlight, resulting in no slowdowns for Google's tool and no disadvantage given to them.
Are those enough reasons? If not, please RTFA before posting again.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Ok who the hell modded this "informative"... Of course, you do realize that Apple has a complete monopoly on software, bundling AND hardware in its own niche, never mind of the law is shortsighted enough to miss that.
Apple users use anything Steve feeds them and Apple's solution is far more locked down than Windows ever was.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Apple works tightly with Google, so that's given. I want to know: how I set Live.com as the search engine in Safari?