Isn't google doing the same thing. They are using their search dominance to get people to use their other services. If DOJ hadn't forced MSFT to stop making IE the default browser would google be as big. Most people don't ever change the defaults on their browser. If MSFT had been left alone are you sure google would be as big as they are today? I mean they took netscape from 90% market share to like 5% marketshare.
In fact Google is doing exact the same thing - pushing their browser using possibly the worlds most wanted ad spot: the front page of Google.
It's almost a one-to-one to Windows pushing their browser by default in the OS that almost everyone used at that time.
Edit: I like some other things Google do but they definitely should talk about this internally an do something about it before EU as well as relevant US authorities wakes up and punish them for anti competitive behaviour.
Or maybe the relevant authorities should slap them on the wrist first; Microsoft seems to have learned the lesson and is a much nicer company to deal with in many areas now.
Microsoft tied MSIE to Windows distribution, if you wanted to distribute Windows with your PCs you had to agree to Microsoft's terms. In some cases you had to pay Microsoft for a Windows license regardless of whether or not you had installed Windows on the PC.
I concede I could be wrong but I do not believe Google Chrome ships with Windows or OS X.
Would Google be as big as it is today? I have no idea, but the reason Google is Google has less to do with Microsoft's antitrust case than with dozens of previous commercial search engines failing to compete with them. By the time the MSFT antitrust case was resolved there was no meaningful competition to Microsoft on PCs and Netscape was winding down into the Mozilla project.
