Microsoft says Google violates antitrust laws

SEATTLE - Microsoft filed a formal complaint Thursday with European antitrust regulators about Google's dominance of the Internet search market in the region.

Google bars competitors from accessing its YouTube video site for search results and has kept phones running Microsoft's operating system from working properly with YouTube, Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft said in a blog posting by general counsel Brad Smith.

A Microsoft unit and two other rivals last year lodged a complaint with the European Union, which is investigating whether Google has violated the region's antitrust laws. Google is under growing pressure from global regulators who are probing whether the company is using its dominance of Web search to thwart competition.

"Our filing today focuses on a pattern of actions that Google has taken to entrench its dominance in the markets for online search and search advertising to the detriment of European consumers," Smith wrote in the blog posting.

While Microsoft and partner Yahoo Inc. have about a quarter of the U.S. search market and Google most of the rest, Google has almost 95 percent of the market in Europe, Smith said, citing data from regulators.

Google "is not surprised" that Microsoft has complained because its advertising unit, Ciao from Bing, filed a complaint last year, said Al Verney, a spokesman for Google in Brussels.

"We continue to discuss the case with the European Commission and we're happy to explain to anyone how our business works," he said in an e-mailed statement.