‘Burdening’ Microsoft

A federal judge asked Microsoft Friday to let him know how much of a burden it would be to provide documents requested by longtime rival Google, in a federal antitrust lawsuit against Google.

The search and advertising giant had asked the judge to compel Microsoft to turn over documents, citing its failure to comply with a subpoena, according to a court filing unsealed late Thursday.

Google served a subpoena to Microsoft months ago, seeking documents regarding Microsoft’s Bing search engine as well as its Internet Explorer and Edge but has not received them, the filing said.

Google says some of the documents might shed light on whether Microsoft was actually restrained from competing with Google, or whether it simply failed to compete successfully.