A screenshot from Foundem's FCC filing, showing Google's Universal Search box redirecting users to the search giant's own Google Product Search price-comparison feature.

British price comparison site Foundem, one of three companies pursuing antitrust complaints against Google in Europe, explains its position in a story this morning by Cade Metz of The Register. One of the key points: Foundem says its complaint doesn't really focus on the way Google's algorithms rank the Foundem site. Instead, it questions the "Universal Search" feature at the top of those algorithmic results that often sends users to Google's own services.

And one of the words Foundem uses to make its case against Google will sound very familiar to anyone who has followed Microsoft's antitrust disputes over the years.

"Crucially, Google determines the exact placement of its own services independently of the ranking algorithms it uses to determine the relative placement of all other results," argues Foundem in a recent FCC filing, published by the Register as part of its piece (PDF, 9 pages). "The degree of favoritism—whether they appear first or third, for example— is therefore entirely at Google’s discretion. Google calls this process of merging its own services with actual search results 'blending' (others have justifiably called it 'bundling')."

There it is, the "bundling" allegation, the same thing that repeatedly put Microsoft in hot water over the years, as competitors questioned its practice of distributing Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player and other programs with the dominant Windows operating system. Whether the allegation will stand up against Google remains to be seen, but it's interesting to see history possibly repeating itself in some ways.

Foundem's EU complaint is under seal, but the Register says the gist of the bundling complaint is included in the FCC filing. That filing cites, as examples, the way Google's Universal Search box directs users to its own mapping and product-comparison services. Foundem presents data to support its contention that the approach gave those Google services an advantage over competitors.

But isn't Foundem just a Microsoft puppet? Its founders say no. Foundem does belong to trade group ICOMP, which is funded in part by Microsoft, as Google pointed out in a blog post. (As Google also pointed out, one of the other complaining companies, Ciao! by Bing, is a Microsoft subsidiary.) In addition, the Register notes that ICOMP's legal director wrote some "legal bits" of Foundem's EU complaint.

However, the article says Foundem hasn't received any money from the trade group or from Microsoft, and neither company has any ownership interest in the other.

"Google should spend an afternoon with Shivaun and Adam Raff, the two very real people behind a recent EU antitrust complaint against its web search monopoly," writes Metz in his introduction. "To meet the pair -- co-founders of the British price comparison site Foundem -- is to know you would never describe them as Microsoft mouthpieces. They're computer scientists by training and search engineers by trade, and with their European complaint -- echoed stateside with an FCC filing -- they've made a case that deserves a level of attention denied by Google's remarkably successful efforts to paint them as Redmondian sockpuppets."

The full Register story is worth a read: Why the Google antitrust complaint is not about Microsoft.

Previously: Microsoft to Google: Trust us, you have an antitrust problem