Ballmer lashes Google over IE settings

MICROSOFT NUMBER two, Steve Ballmer has hit out at Google, claiming the web-searching outfit wants to be a special case on the new, Volish, IE7 browser.

The Googlers claims that Microsoft has made itself the default search option on the new IE7, something that Ballmer quietly rejects.

Speaking in a hallway to hacks from Cnet, Ballmer whispered that Google was fishing to be made a special case. In his shy and understated way, festering Steve said that if people update their browser and it has a default setting for Yahoo, it will stay on Yahoo.

Google wants Microsoft to prompt the users to change the defaults so that they see a list of search providers, with the top search provider listed first, said Ballmer.

This would, of course, put Google at the top of the list.

Currently IE's default settings for search engines is listed alphabetically. That may be great for Ask.com, not so hot for Google, but even worse for MSN.

Ballmer said that his Vole wanted to make sure that there was good, healthy competition in the advertising space.

"Everybody deserves good competition. People have been telling me that for years," he said. Is he now listening? µ