Google CEO Says Microsoft's Yahoo Bid Is, Surprise, Bad For Internet

"We would be concerned by any kind of acquisition of Yahoo by Microsoft," Schmidt told reporters, Reuters reported. "We would hope that anything they did would be consistent with the openness of the Internet, but I doubt it would be."

Without citing examples, he cited Microsoft's history and "the things that it has done that have been so difficult for everyone."

Microsoft has a long history of antitrust problems, and last year the European Union upheld a 2004 decision that Microsoft abused the near-monopoly power of its Windows operating system to undermine rivals, issuing Microsoft a $695 million fine.

"We are concerned that there are things Microsoft could do that would be bad for the Internet," said Schmidt.

Microsoft and Google are rivals on a number of fronts, increasingly willing to criticize each other as their products compete. The rivalry over Internet strategies is intense, with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer vowing recently that that his company would significantly gain in online advertising and Web searching against Microsoft, even if led to his "last breath" at the company.

Schmidt made his remarks in China, where he is planning to announced a redesigned Website in the coming weeks, the Wall Street Journal reported. There is some irony that his holier-than-thou remarks came in a country where last year, Google was criticized in the U.S. Congress for co-operating with China's controversial censorship policies.

Microsoft has offered to buy Yahoo in a deal originally worth $44.6 billion, but that offer has been rejected by Yahoo's board as inadequate. Schmidt's remarks come on the same day that senior executives from Microsoft and Yahoo sat down together to talk about the takeover bid, Reuters reported.