The software giant has accused its tech rival of waging a proxy campaign to discredit it in the eyes of regulators US tech giant Microsoft has accused longtime rival Google of orchestrating “shadow campaigns” to discredit the firm’s cloud business among regulatory authorities and policymakers in the EU. In a statement on Monday, Microsoft Corporate Vice President and Deputy General Counsel Rima Alaily alleged that Google had hired a firm to recruit European cloud companies as “astroturf” groups,