Google Court Filing Cranks Up Heat on Microsoft

As if their relations weren't frosty enough, Google has asked a federal judge to extend the consent decree and judicial supervision Microsoft has operated under for nearly 5 years. Microsoft responded to a Google complaint last week by agreeing to modify the desktop-search function in its new Vista OS, but Google's filing today said the changes are "only vaguely described."

Most of the 2002 consent decree that settled the government's antitrust suit expires in November, which Google argues is too early to ensure that the promised changes are part of the service pack scheduled for release late this year. The amicus filing with the court is unusual, the Financial Times reports, because it circumvents federal and state regulators. (More Microsoft stories.)