In what can be termed as the most candid assault on Internet search bigwig Google, a recent blog post by Dave Heiner, deputy general counsel of software giant Microsoft, has called Google's actions and policies as `anti-competitive.'

With recent complaints from Microsoft's German subsidiary Caio and two other small online companies prompting the European Commission's preliminary investigations into Google's operations, Heiner said: "We've increasingly heard complaints from a range of firms, large and small, about a wide variety of Google business practices. Some of the complaints just reflect aggressive business stances taken by Google. Some reflect the secrecy with which Google operates in many areas. Some appear to raise serious antitrust issues."

Microsoft, which has for years been the key target of antitrust regulators in the US and Europe for its dominance of computer operating systems, has clearly brought the limelight on the search market leader Google, alleging that the company is not only imposing unfair conditions for advertisers, but is also downgrading the ranking of rival sites in its search results.

In addition, with Microsoft also opposing Google's much-debated digitization of millions of books, Heiner said in his post that Microsoft's concerns largely pertain to Google's practices of a potential lock in of business partners and content, like Google Books; thereby thwarting rivals and undermining competition more extensively.