JEREMY HOBSON: Talk about irony. Microsoft has filed an anti-trust complaint in Europe against google. Microsoft claims the search giant abused it’s dominant position in Internet search to strangle the competition.

The BBC’s Rebecca Singer reports.

REBECCA SINGER: European regulators have been formally investigating Google since last November when four smaller rivals complained that the search giant was manipulating search results. The news today is that Microsoft has joined the complaint.

The move is not without irony. Microsoft itself was the target of a decade-long spat with Europe’s anti-competition regulators. And in the end, paid over $1 billion to Europe at the time a record fine for an individual company.

But now the boot is on the other food, and Microsoft is claiming to be the underdog.

Rupert Goodwin is editor of technology website ZDNet. He says he’s not surprised by the move.

RUPERT GOODWIN: Microsoft has failed completely to make any headway against Google in Europe in particular on the online search market.

If found guilty Google could in theory be fined millions or even billions of dollars. Maybe approaching — or surpassing — the record fines once paid by Microsoft.

In London, I’m the BBC’s Rebecca Singer for Marketplace.