Google trumps Microsoft IE7 in search war?

Among the many Google claims to fame is that it has chosen to “ignore conventional wisdom in designing its business.”

Subsequently, rather than “If you can’t beat them, join them,” Google takes to the notion, “If you can’t beat them, hijack them!”

Case in point: Microsoft Internet Explorer 7, “Optimized for Google.”

Did you know “Google recommends upgrading to the new, safer Internet Explorer 7,” courtesy of Microsoft?

Does it not seem like just yesterday that Google’s ordinarily congenial vice president for search products, Marissa Mayer, complained “We don't think it's right for Microsoft to just set the default to MSN.”

It was actually one year ago, and despite Google’s attempts to portray Microsoft as an anti-competitive IE7 bully in Internet search before the U.S. Justice Department, the antitrust authorities determined "Internet Explorer 7 includes a relatively straightforward method for the user to select a different search engine."

At the time, the New York Times wrote in “New Microsoft browser raises Google’s hackles”:

"Microsoft insists it has no intention of deploying its browser as a weapon in the search wars. But Google suspects otherwise."

It is Google, in fact, that is now deploying the Microsoft browser as its own weapon in the search wars.

Internet Explorer 7 “Optimized for Google,” that is.

Google now claims to be bowled over by what’s “New in Internet Explorer 7”:

Tabs: let you view multiple sites in one window Safer browsing: with phishing protection Convenient printing: with fit-to-page capability

“Optimized for Google” means all the difference, of course, in Google's plan for ever increasing Google search share, over Microsoft:

Google homepage you can personalize Google Toolbar Google as your search engine

Google has two not so secret weapons in its Microsoft IE 7 hijacking campaign: The largest ad network on the Web, and the most visited search engine.

Google is spreading the IE7, but Googley better, gospel in prime Google.com AdWords territory, above Microsoft's "organic" number one position, and all around the Google AdSense World Wide Web, at no cost to Google, to boot!

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