The Guardian says Google is hypocritical to complain about Microsoft defaulting their own search engine in the forthcoming Windows Vista and IE7. Hypocritical because Firefox and Opera already default Google as the search engine, and there is speculation that Google has paid for this privilege. Nathan echos the hypocrite argument.

I don't think it's hypocritical of Google to complain about Microsoft's anti-competitive behavior, since Google is not in a position to control user choice, and Google is not putting their own interests ahead of their users.

Background

Microsoft's Windows controls 90% of the personal computers in the world. Microsoft has a rich history of using their desktop dominance to lock out competitors, to limit user choices to Microsoft properties, and to stymie innovation and competition.

Artificially limiting choice enhances Microsoft's business at the expense of the user, which is evil (with a lowercase 'e').

Today, you can search from the address bar in Microsoft's IE6 browser, but it will use Microsoft's own MSN for that search, and it is not very easy to change this behavior. I've changed IE6 to use Google, but unlike most users, I'm comfortable editing arcane registry keys on my computer and risking a corrupted registry that could wreck Windows.

In the forthcoming Windows Vista and IE7, there will be a built-in search box in the upper right corner of every window. These searches will default to Microsoft properties, and Microsoft has said it will be easier to change the default in IE7 than by directly editing the registry as in IE6. But Microsoft will not ask the user for their preference, knowing that many users might switch if given the choice.

The issue

With 90% of computers controlled by Microsoft, it's not a level playing field. But Microsoft doesn't accept that their position of power over the user gives them a fiduciary responsibility not to put Microsoft's interests before the user's interests.

Google has a 50% market share in search, and unlike Microsoft, Google does realize a fiduciary responsibility to their users. Google doesn't use their dominance in search to put Google's interests ahead of their users. Google doesn't only feature Google properties, or invisibly direct users to Google partners, or bias search results to harm competitors. It's certainly in their power to do so, but they choose not to because that would be lowercase 'e' evil.

Firefox has a 10% market share in browers, and is usually installed by a sophisticated user who runs Linux, or wants features that IE can't provide. While it defaults to Google search, it's trivially easy to select a different search provider -- just click the arrow on the search box and choose somebody else.

The evil test

The proper test to detect lowercase 'e' evil to to determine if Microsoft or Google is using their market dominance to advance their own interests ahead of their users.

Is Microsoft or Google using their position to unfairly constrain user choice? It's not hypocritical to say that in this case, Microsoft is, and Google isn't.