The California-based search engine giant Google and the Washington-based software firm Microsoft have daggers drawn at each other as the two companies are facing increasing pressure from lawmakers and regulators in relation to the extraordinary power that the two technology firms wield over American life.
Both the companies are trying to throw the other under the bus.
It has been a while that there has been tension simmering between Microsoft Corp and Alphabet-owned Google. But in recent days, that rivalry has become unusually public with executives from both companies have been put on the defensive over competing crises.
The role of Google in gutting the media industry’s advertisement revenue has drawn bipartisan complaints - and journalistic ire, and has become the topic for a Congressional antitrust hearing.
On the other hand, criticism and scrutiny of its role in back-to-back cybersecurity breaches is being faced by Microsoft.
Microsoft’s cloud software was used by hackers to gain access to some of the clients of the company. The hacker group is the same allegedly Russian one that was involved in the widespread hacking of the Texas software firm SolarWinds Corp. the second incident that has put Microsoft under the scanner is the hacking by Chinese hackers who took advantage of Chinese hackers to steal emails from Microsoft customers all around the world.
Microsoft President Brad Smith, while talking to lawmakers last week at a House Judiciary antitrust subcommittee on news, was set to point fingers at Google as he told representatives that media organizations are being forced to “use Google’s tools, operate on Google’s ad exchanges, contribute data to Google’s operations, and pay Google money,” said reports based on information from excerpts of the executive’s testimony published by Axios.
Google however was not to be left behind. Firing back at Microsoft, the company pointed out the software maker’s “newfound interest in attacking us comes on the heels of the SolarWinds attack and at a moment when they’ve allowed tens of thousands of their customers — including government agencies in the U.S., NATO allies, banks, nonprofits, telecommunications providers, public utilities, police, fire and rescue units, hospitals and, presumably, news organizations — to be actively hacked via major Microsoft vulnerabilities.”
(Source:www.reuters.com)
Both the companies are trying to throw the other under the bus.
It has been a while that there has been tension simmering between Microsoft Corp and Alphabet-owned Google. But in recent days, that rivalry has become unusually public with executives from both companies have been put on the defensive over competing crises.
The role of Google in gutting the media industry’s advertisement revenue has drawn bipartisan complaints - and journalistic ire, and has become the topic for a Congressional antitrust hearing.
On the other hand, criticism and scrutiny of its role in back-to-back cybersecurity breaches is being faced by Microsoft.
Microsoft’s cloud software was used by hackers to gain access to some of the clients of the company. The hacker group is the same allegedly Russian one that was involved in the widespread hacking of the Texas software firm SolarWinds Corp. the second incident that has put Microsoft under the scanner is the hacking by Chinese hackers who took advantage of Chinese hackers to steal emails from Microsoft customers all around the world.
Microsoft President Brad Smith, while talking to lawmakers last week at a House Judiciary antitrust subcommittee on news, was set to point fingers at Google as he told representatives that media organizations are being forced to “use Google’s tools, operate on Google’s ad exchanges, contribute data to Google’s operations, and pay Google money,” said reports based on information from excerpts of the executive’s testimony published by Axios.
Google however was not to be left behind. Firing back at Microsoft, the company pointed out the software maker’s “newfound interest in attacking us comes on the heels of the SolarWinds attack and at a moment when they’ve allowed tens of thousands of their customers — including government agencies in the U.S., NATO allies, banks, nonprofits, telecommunications providers, public utilities, police, fire and rescue units, hospitals and, presumably, news organizations — to be actively hacked via major Microsoft vulnerabilities.”
(Source:www.reuters.com)
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