Microsoft filed this week a formal complaint with the European Commission against Google on allegations that the search engine giant systematically prevents Internet search competition.

The complaint is the first time Microsoft has made a formal filing with regulators over competition issues.

Microsoft claims that Google practices a "pattern of actions" that impede competition unfairly. It should be noted that Google owns 90% of the search market in Europe.

Thus, in the filing Microsoft accuses Google of hurting the competition by "walling off" content on its YouTube site, so other search engines can't display accurate results; by making it difficult for Microsoft's mobile phone software to show videos from YouTube; by blocking access to content owned by book publishers which Google has copied and stored; by not allowing advertisers to use their own data about customers garnered from Google on other sites, such as those owned by Microsoft; by blocking websites from using competing 'search boxes'; and by making it expensive for potential competitors to Google to advertise online.