Chrome: Why Google Fears Microsoft

Sam Gustin says: Listening to Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin answer questions following the company's demo of Chrome, I thought I detected a hint of something not usually associated with the Web search giant.

Fear.

Although Microsoft was the entity whose-name-shall-not-be-spoken during the demo, it was clear that the Redmond software giant was like a specter haunting the proceedings.

Google is concerned that Microsoft's Web browser dominance could stand in the way of the company stated goal of evolving from a "Web search company" to a "Web search, ads, and apps" company. Google has made no secret of its desire to move aggressively into Web applications, but as long as Microsoft controls the platform, Google will be at its mercy.

But Google can't fully optimize its Web applications -- and prevent them from being undermined -- unless it has its own browser platform.

Thus Google's emphasis on Open Source development. Google sounds magnanimous when it says it is making its software available to others: but there is an implicit bargain here. It wants access to everyone else's software in return, the better to ensure that its applications work as well as possible.

It was no secret whom Page was talking about when he said: "As computer scientists, we want to live in a world where our software is advancing. We don't want to live in a world where all of it is locked up and kept secret and nobody can improve it."

Moreover, the browser has become a vast repository of Web surfing behavior, and in the ongoing quest to gather ever more personal data with which to tailor targeted advertising, Google simply couldn't afford not to take at stab at Microsoft's control of the browser market. Just last week, Microsoft introduced Internet Explorer 8, which includes a feature which makes it harder for Web marketers to track online Web activity, a potential threat to Google's highly profitable targeted advertising business.

Like IE 8, Chrome has robust privacy features designed to ensure that people feel they can browse the Web "incognito," to use Google's term, but the very existence of those privacy controls should serve as a warning to users about just how much of their browsing habits are currently tracked.

Finally, Google must be afraid of Microsoft's browser dominance -- why else would Brin and Page expose themselves to charges of hypocrisy by complaining about Microsoft's control of the market and waxing eloquent about how important it is to give users more than one viable choice on the Web.

Memo to Google guys: Look who's talking!