The 90s’ browser wars are repeating and Google is bankrolling the battle

The search giant is funding the Browser Choice Alliance (BCA), an industry group involving Google and smaller browser makers

A quarter of a century ago, when Microsoft used its dominance of the personal computer market to force people to use Internet Explorer, it famously led to a devastating antitrust lawsuit loss that some believe held the company back for more than a decade. Only now, revitalised by Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella’s quick moves in artificial intelligence, is the Windows-maker back on top. As AI rivalries intensify, Google is now trying to put Microsoft through its ’90s nightmare again.

The new “Browser War” is brewing thanks to the desktop or laptop’s position as one of the biggest early battlegrounds in AI. (Representative file photo)

The search giant is funding the Browser Choice Alliance (BCA), an industry group involving Google and a number of smaller browser makers, such as Opera, Vivaldi and others, set up to put pressure on Microsoft. The complaint, as it was back then, is that Microsoft is once again using its ownership of the Windows operating system to give its own browser an unfair leg up — at a moment that some feel is as pivotal as the emergence of the internet.

The Alphabet unit is not the only financial backer of the BCA, said two people familiar with its structure, but it is comfortably the largest. This isn’t surprising because it has the most to lose: Longtime rival Microsoft, with its partner OpenAI, sees a window to take on Google’s search dominance, and were Microsoft to become the most popular AI browser, it would steal considerable market share.

Google would not confirm the size of the company’s contribution to BCA. “We’ve been open about our concerns with Microsoft’s well–documented use of dark patterns that make it harder for Windows users to keep using their preferred browser,” a spokesman said.

The new “Browser War” is brewing thanks to the desktop or laptop computer’s position as one of the biggest early battlegrounds in AI. While the smartphone has become people’s most frequently used computing platform, the desktop (or laptop) has retained its place for accomplishing real work — the kind of tasks AI makers say they can help with the most. As such, a slew of new or improved browsers has hit the market, with new entrants such as the Browser Company’s Dia browser or Perplexity’s Comet.

OpenAI is said to be working on its own. Winning the browser is seen as critically important as it can help forge new habits. Perplexity, for instance, said that users who installed Comet were making three times more AI queries every day than they had been previously.

Following suit, Microsoft recently announced that Edge — the default browser for Windows users — had received a significant AI upgrade. The company’s CoPilot assistant is now embedded in the browser and can take control of a user’s tabs to carry out tasks such as making a booking, much like a human might (at least in theory).

The alliance has been busy assembling a rap sheet of ways it says Microsoft makes it difficult for Windows users to use anything other than Edge. It argues that Windows puts up unwarranted scary security warnings when users try to download an alternative browser. And, when prompted to install a Windows update, BCA contends Microsoft uses “dark patterns” to coerce users into setting Edge back as the default browser on their machine.

“They’re repeating some of the exact same tactics that they used 20, 25 years ago,” said Gene Burrus, a former Microsoft lawyer-turned-competition lawyer, brought in by the BCA to advocate for forcing his old employer to level the playing field.

The alliance would not say whether it plans to mount a US legal challenge to Microsoft’s conduct, saying that for now it’s seeking to raise “awareness.” In Europe, it has lobbied regulators, arguing that Microsoft is only partially complying with new competition laws. Separately, BCA member Opera has filed a complaint with the competition agency in Brazil. “Microsoft’s tactics are unjustified, frustrating to users, and only getting more severe,” the Oslo-based company said.

Microsoft sees things differently. It argues that it’s more than a little rich that Google, which commands a 68% share of the global desktop browser market, is complaining about Edge, with its 5%, especially because, thanks to a ruling a just a year ago, Google is a freshly ordained illegal monopolist itself — a row that, as in this case, was about the lucrative benefits of being a default choice that’s hard for users to shake off. “Google, not Microsoft, dominates the browser market,” said a Microsoft spokesman. “And, as the US DOJ case has established, it uses distribution with its partners like Opera to foreclose search competition.”

Be that as it may, competition concerns must look beyond the current status quo and instead recognise where the market is going. Google and the other BCA members are right to be fearful, and regulators would be wise to take note of the control Microsoft has in shaping consumers’ new behaviours in the AI era. It was, after all, the “default” status that helped Google build and maintain its own colossal monopoly in search — that’s why it paid upward of $20 billion a year to Apple to make sure it was the search engine of choice on the iPhone.

What’s good for Google, in this case at least (and maybe at most), is good for healthy competition across the rest of the AI pack. The company, or ideally companies, that win the browser battle will be richly rewarded — and they should get there through merit, not pre-installation or dark patterns.

At all times, viable competitors should have a fair crack at knocking market leaders off their perch. Microsoft must keep its most aggressive instincts in check, or it might find history repeating itself.