EC To Pursue Antitrust Despite Microsoft's IE Move 484
snydeq writes "The European Commission will proceed with its antitrust case against Microsoft regardless of Microsoft's decision to strip IE from Windows 7 in Europe. Europe's top antitrust regulator said the EC would draw up a remedy that allows computer users 'genuine consumer choice,' noting that stripping out IE from Windows 'may potentially be positive,' but 'rather than more choice, Microsoft seems to have chosen to provide less.' Jon von Tetzchner, CEO of Opera, whose complaint to the European Commission at the end of 2007 sparked the initial antitrust investigation, said Microsoft is 'trying to set the remedy itself by stripping out IE. ... Now that Microsoft has acknowledged it has been breaking the law by bundling IE into Windows, the Commission must push ahead with an effective remedy,' he said."
On what basis? (Score:2, Interesting)
On the basis? That they're NOT bundling IE now? I despise Microsoft as much as the next Ubuntu DVD-wielding geek, but if they pull IE out of Windows 7 in Europe, along with the stuff they opened up (apparently to the EC's satisfaction) haven't they complied with the EC's demands? Does the EC have something else on Microsoft?
I'm just a bit puzzled here. Someone enlighten me.
Re:Okay, enough already (Score:1, Interesting)
I'll join the both of you, too. I have Karma to burn.
At this point I don't think it has anything to do with a 'monopoly' in the browser market. I think it is just greed, plain and simple. If the EU can find MS to be 'guilty' (again) then they can extract more cash from the company.
Re:Okay, enough already (Score:0, Interesting)
The EU is looking to help their financial crisis by extorting money from MS.
F*ck the EU.
MS says "we're not including a browser" and the Opera f*ckhead says that "Microsoft seems to have chosen to provide less" - is he a retard or what?
MS should tell the EU that all OS released in the EU should be browserless. That includes Linux, OSX, etc. why should it JUST be MS?
Oh. Wait. Because the EU can't get money from the others.
MS should pull all LICENSES and demand the EU enforce copyright law. And then start suing countries and people in the EU for not removing their windows/office licenses from their systems.
Give the EU a break (Score:3, Interesting)
I mean, have you seen the economy lately? How else are they supposed to have a balanced budget without leveling massive fines on American companies?
deserved (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Okay, enough already (Score:1, Interesting)
Go back to the 90s. Netscape is dead, so is Novell.
Saying that the browser should have been stripped ten years ago is ignoring the problem with the EC's decision. Microsoft did precisely what it could do, 3 months before a launch, and the EC decided it wasn't enough. Seriously, they're trying to blame Microsoft for their own crappy reasoning.
Bundling, in the era of the internet, means absolutely nothing for monopoly. IE, for a number of people, is just a means to get a different browser.
Also, your opinion is not humble. It is brazen, fueled by hatred, and logically flawed. IMO, you should stop saying IMHO.
Re:Wait what? (Score:1, Interesting)
1) Microsoft should have been split up into an OS and Software division, but looks like FTC failed on that one and allowed them to grow.
2) Microsoft created Windows to be open to developers to create their own software. Them offering their own software for free BUNDLED with the OS is NOT fair, no matter what stupid spin people put on it.
Yes, there is nothing wrong if they had a browser on it, if it was a bare-bones door to the web, but it isn't.
It is a well known fact that Microsoft done what they done with Internet Explorer to keep control of the desktop in their hands by killing off the competition, then letting the browser rot a slow painful death so they can continue selling software.
But WOOPS, that never happened, and now they have to pay for the mistakes that FTC made in the first place.
And they are still trying to do this with ActiveX 2.0 AKA Silverlight! Granted it is much better than that terrible plugin Flash, the fact remains that all plugins are terrible.
This is why they hate Google so much. Every year, they release things that compete with their software, but can be accessed anywhere on any OS.
Re:Okay, enough already (Score:4, Interesting)
EU want MS to include a choice in the Win7 installer that gives a user the choise to install either EI, Firefox or Opera. Instead MS just went out to remove the choice of having a brower entirely.
That's the worst idea I ever heard. Hey, I just wrote a browser called BlakeyBrowse, how do I get in on this gravy train? It's a wrapper around MSHTML, but mine includes 15 animated ads on every page load! Since it's built into the Windows installer, and customers don't understand this choice when they make it, I'll get thousands of installs even though it's a piece of shit. Woo!
Why should Microsoft have to support Firefox and Opera? That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard in my life.
Even if Microsoft is forced to stop their anti-competitive practises they still don't give the user the choice of a different browser.
Microsoft *never took that away* from the user. Ever. Nothing EVER stopped you from installing Mosaic, or Netscape, or Opera, or Firefox, or Safari. Never in the history of Microsoft have they taken away the "choice of a different browser."
You're either completely full of shit, or completely delusional. I don't know which.
I hope they'll bleed. And stop whining about the EU only wanting to make money because their fines are a tiny drop in the financial ocean.
The only press we in the US see about the EU summarizes as:
* EU sues highly-successful American company for dubious reasons, imposes gigantic fines.
What are we supposed to believe the motive is?
Re:Let me see if I have this right... (Score:2, Interesting)
You missed the point. The EU are still in the middle of the antitrust case so they have decided to let that continue rather than stop the progress of the case because of Microsofts statement. They have not said what they want Microsoft to do at all yet, though it is of course heavily implied that something like unbundling the browser would be an outcome. It is like a normal court case where even if the defendant pleads guilty the case continues because they want to sort out sentencing and do things properly. In this case Microsoft appear to have admitted they are guilty and chosen their own sentence but the EU want to actually go through the case themselves so it is done properly.
Re:history matters (Score:3, Interesting)
So what's the EU to do? Nothing?
Well, the EU did sit by and watched while all this was happening. And now, it's too late and the cure is worse than the disease. I would prefer that they did nothing at this point. All they should do is educate users about web standards and security while making sure MS doesn't cross it's limits again. But this witch hunting an OS for including a browser at a time when the main reason to use a computer is to go online is full of crock.
Re:Honestly you lack fantasy... (Score:3, Interesting)
BS. Even though I live in EU (well, in one of backward and corrupt new memberstates...but it shows what MS accomplishes when given free reign) there are still "IE-only" webpages. Of some administration usually. ".doc-only" too.
Heck, even the software required to run a company (tax related, provided "free") is available only for Windows. And it's made with my money. And there was quite vast campaign of criticism when the plans for "windows-only" were acknowledged. In any normal place it would be enough.
But here, where MS for a long time could do anything, people don't see a problem; "but...everybody has Windows!". Waste of resources, mindset provoking lack of security (about this tax app: specs weren't realesed, because that would "compromise the security of encryption used in the system"), stiffening of innovation (we're quite backward and not-innovative, only copy) is what you get then.
I'm constantly amased that EU is willing to take this so far.
Re:Okay, enough already (Score:3, Interesting)
What, exactly, is enough? Microsoft is a convicted monopolist.
*sigh*. Not this old canard again. Do you understand what the term "convicted" means? Apparently not.
"convicted" means you have been found guilty of criminal activity. This requires a criminal trial, and possibly a jury. Microsoft has never even been accused of any criminal misdoings by any legal authority, much less actually gone to trial.
You seem to be confusing a civil lawsuit with a criminal trial. They are not equivlent. A civil lawsuit can only seek damages and possibly structural and/or behavioral changes. A criminal trial would result in someone doing jail-time, or at best probation, restitution, and possibly a fine. But in either case, it results in a criminal record. Further, corporations cannot be tried criminally, only the officers of the company can. For example, the officers of Enron were tried and convicted in criminal court.
In other words, Civil proceedings do not result in a criminal record of any kind.
Microsoft has been found "liable" of violaing antitrust laws, but is not a "convicted monopolist".