Google and Microsoft agree to start suing each other again | Hacker News Reader

Google and Microsoft agree to start suing each other again

arstechnica.com

>The non-aggression pact, signed five years ago, let the two companies set aside their numerous lawsuits. It also created a process by which they could resolve conflicts behind closed doors, requiring Microsoft and Google to follow that process before asking regulators to step in. During this time, the two companies have tussled over a number of issues, including whether search engines should pay news publishers.

Why are things like this legal?

Why are billion dollar companies that, between the two, control huge amounts of all markets related to computers and the internet allowed to make backdoor deals that avoid regulators and essentially is them arguing over which piece of the entire domain of computing belongs to them with no oversight?

You can't force a private entity to sue another private entity. The regulator (government) can sue it if it finds it at fault. And a private entity can choose to complain to the regulator if it wants. The agreement here between MSFT and GOOG is to try and resolve disputes internally if possible without suing each other or complaining to the regulator. There's nothing illegal in that.

Also the vast majority of contracts these days have "Arbitration clauses" that require all disputes to go through an arbitration process rather than lawsuits in the courtroom.

While there is a great debate to be had that many "Arbitration clauses" far too often curb consumer rights to civil courts (so called "tort reform"; putting limits on what your legal rights are as a consumer), arbitration has "always" been seen as the default first and lawsuits as the necessarily hard next step if arbitration fails (and if a given arbitration clause allows someone their rights to a fair trial in a court of law).

That definitely feels like the equivalent of gambling for huge corporations.

Spend a few millions on lawyers, either you lose it or win some millions

And it is the lawyers who never lose in this game

Yes, whenever a legal gamble comes up, the lawyers are the house.

I must admit I do not understand this part:

> In addition, an antitrust lawsuit filed by state attorneys general claims that Google also favors its own platform by offering automated auctions to optimize bids; an equivalent tool isn’t available to advertisers seeking to book space on Bing. As a result of the moves (or lack thereof), advertisers using Google’s ad platform found it easier to buy ads on Google, not Bing. Other search engines that rely on Bing are also affected, including DuckDuckGo, Yahoo, and Ecosia.

So is the problem that Google won't build something to work with Microsoft's product? Why are they compelled to? Also, why are state AGs part of an article talking about the companies suing each other?

I think the context there is Google's Search Ads 360 product is supposed to be a unified interface to search marketing campaigns across all major search engines, but is aledgedly favoring Google search over others (or at least Bing and dependents).

State AGs are part of the article because when big companies disagree, they sue about some things and complain about some things to officials including regulators and AGs.

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