Microsoft taking shots at competitor Google

With Google, Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) consistently trying to horn in on Microsoft's playground for office/productivity software, Ole' Softie is accusing Google of profiting handsomely from copyright infringement and pirated software. In a nutshell, an attorney for Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT)says that Google's AdWords program allows software pirates to locate and download illegal software. Actually, that is true. Google's uncanny ability to index just about everything on the web makes it easy to locate, well, just about anything.

Should Google be held liable for providing a "table of contents" to the entire web, legal and illegal? That is the question -- and it reminds me of how file-trading services can or can't be held responsible for what its users upload and download using its search services.

Microsoft attorney Thomas Rubin said that Google's scanning the books of others and taking news headlines and categorizing them in Google News constitutes its "cavalier" approach to copyright infringement. On the scanning of books, that is a great question for debate. On the indexing of news using the automated Google News service, that one is still up for debate, I think. If news services don't want new customers to find them or want to live in the "old media" age, Google should block their sources from being automatically aggregated. I use Google News constantly based on easiness and so I don't have to waste my time finding literally hundreds of different new sources for information. Does Google wield enough power to change all the rules here?