Microsoft assault on Google shows industry shift.

Marketing campaign that Microsoft Corp. derisively calls "Scroogled." The ads, which have appeared online, on television and in print, depict Google as a duplicitous company more interested in increasing profits and power than protecting people's privacy and providing unbiased search results.

This time, Microsoft is vilifying Google Inc. for sharing some of the personal information that it gathers about people who buy applications designed to run on smartphones and tablet computers powered by Google's Android software. Earlier ads have ripped Google's long-running practice of electronically scanning the contents of people's Gmail accounts to help sell ads. Other ads attacked a recently introduced policy that requires retailers to pay to appear in the shopping section of Google's dominant search engine.

"We think we have a better alternative that doesn't do these kinds of nefarious things," said Greg Sullivan, Microsoft's senior manager for Windows Phone, the business taking aim at Google's distribution of personal information about buyers of Android apps.

As Microsoft attacked Google in the United States, a group led by Microsoft asked European authorities to investigate whether Google has been using its free Android operating system to stifle competition from other mobile services besides its own. One such rival is Microsoft's Windows Phone system.