Google and Microsoft agree to start suing each other again

After years of relative calm, Google and Microsoft are tossing out their ceasefire, a move that—perhaps ironically—could bring each company additional antitrust scrutiny.

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. But Microsoft reached the end of its rope when it felt that Google wasn’t playing fair in ad tech.

The ad tech problem surfaced just three years into the agreement, when Microsoft complained that Google was dragging its feet in supporting some of Bing’s new ad formats in one of its ad management tools, Search Ads 360. 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.

“We raised the concerns with them, and they just turned a deaf ear,” Microsoft President Brad Smith said earlier this year. Google’s unwillingness to work with Bing, he said, was costing the company hundreds of millions of dollars per year in ad revenue.

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