EU slaps Microsoft, again
If you buy a new PC in Europe next year, you’re going to see an
unfamiliar little pop-up window the first time you boot up, asking you
which internet browser you would like to set as the default. Believe it
or not, that pop-up is the result of a bitter ten-year legal battle
that was finally resolved this week.
The EU has been involved in anti-trust charges
against Microsoft for years, alleging that the company has operated as
a monopoly in various ways. It was the weak regulatory system in the
United States that allowed this to happen in the first place, but over
the last decade the EU’s competition regulator has become increasingly
assertive, and today it is widely acknowledged as the world’s
regulatory body.
This specific dispute centred on the fact that since the vast majority
of PCs use the windows operating system, the vast majority of computer
users were using internet explorer as their web browser simply because
it was presented as the only option with the system – even though it
isn’t. IE is used by about 56% of internet traffic. This issue is just
one of many complaints against Microsoft launched by the EU. Microsoft has paid €1.7 billion in fines to the EU so far.
The
new rules will only apply to computers sold in Europe, and it remains
to be seen whether Microsoft will adopt the practice globally. The EU
is now the world’s largest advanced market (far larger than the US),
and as its competition regulator has grown more assertive (and in the
face of little regulation in the US), its rulings now often effect
corporate practice in the entire world. It may simply be easier for
Microsoft to offer the pop-up with all its products rather than having
to specifically make a separate version of windows for Europe that
would include the pop-up.This is a significant victory for outgoing competition commissioner Neelie Kroes, who has become an unexpected regulatory champion over the past five years. On 1 January Kroes will move to the Digital Agenda department, to be replaced by Spanish Socialist Joaquin Almunia. Almunia will likely continue Kroes’s tough stance and may go after US companies even more aggressively.
on 16-12-2009 By GulfStreamBlues - Permalink
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