Browser Choice: European Commission Opens Antitrust Probe Against Microsoft

[News_Editor]

Browser choice: European Commission opens antitrust probe against Microsoft < br />

2012-07-18 06:57:53 GMT+7 (ICT)

BRUSSELS, BELGIUM (BNO NEWS) -- The European Union (EU) on Tuesday announced its Commission has launched an antitrust probe against global software company Microsoft Corp. to determine whether its Windows users are given the option to choose their preferred web browser.

The European Commission's investigation is seeking to verify whether the global tech company has failed to comply with its commitments made in December 2009 to offer users of operating system Windows a choice screen enabling them to easily choose their preferred web browser.

The Commission believes that Microsoft may have failed to roll out a web browser 'choice screen' with Windows 7 Service Pack 1, which was released in February 2011, according to information it has received. The choice screen enables Windows users to choose which web browser to install, and Microsoft had previously committed to make it available for five years, until 2014, in the 30-nation European Economic Area.

In January 2009, the Commission informed Microsoft of its preliminary view that the company abused its dominant position in the market for client PC operating systems through the tying of Internet Explorer to Windows. The company indicated in its annual compliance report in December 2011 that it was in compliance with its commitments to the European Commission.

But Microsoft recently acknowledged that the choice screen has not been displayed, despite earlier saying it had been. "Millions of Windows users in the EU may have not seen the choice screen," the European Commission said in a statement released by the European Union on Tuesday.

Joaquín Almunia, Vice President of the Commission in charge of competition policy, underlined that the Commission takes compliance decisions 'very seriously.' "I trusted the company's reports were accurate. But it seems that was not the case, so we have immediately taken action," he said. "If following our investigation, the infringement is confirmed, Microsoft should expect sanctions."

If it is found that a company has breached legally binding commitments, it may be fined up to 10 percent of its total annual turnover.

In May, web browser Google Chrome overtook Internet Explorer for the first time in terms of usage, making it the world's most popular web browser, according to StatCounter, which analyzes web traffic. New figures show Chrome's global market share increased to 32.76 percent in June, slightly more than Internet Explorer's 32.31 percent. The market share of Mozilla's Firefox has continued to drop, now at 24.56 percent.

-- © BNO News All rights reserved 2012-07-18

[GruF]

FireFox for me.

[happysanook]

I don't see this as a problem. If they had 70% of the market share... okay, then it's an issue... People install Windows, they should expect a web browser from Microsoft...The operating system they installed

forcing them to offer an option to download a different one when anybody with the intelligence above monkey can type "dl firefox" or "dl chrome" into the search bar...seems strange..

[bangkockney]

1. IE isn't dominant so what's the problem

2. If the OS doesn't ship with a browser, how are you supposed to get online in the first place?

3. Is MS therefore expected to ship - and continually update - all browsers with their OS and offer a choice? Or offer the choice once a user is online?

[astral]

The old question of the chicken and the egg

You do need a browser to download FF or Chrome

so IE needs to come with the package.

But not bound in, so that it cannot be removed later.

[Guest]

The old question of the chicken and the egg

You do need a browser to download FF or Chrome

so IE needs to come with the package.

But not bound in, so that it cannot be removed later.

Not quite. There are other ways to download software than with browser.

ftp, scp, wget, ..

The rule to require MS to offer other browsers has been probably smartest rule from EU. It has woken up web services to make their products to work with other browsers as well. This has reduced the need to have Windows (IE) while using web based products.

[bangkockney]

The old question of the chicken and the egg

You do need a browser to download FF or Chrome

so IE needs to come with the package.

But not bound in, so that it cannot be removed later.

Not quite. There are other ways to download software than with browser.

ftp, scp, wget, ..

The rule to require MS to offer other browsers has been probably smartest rule from EU. It has woken up web services to make their products to work with other browsers as well. This has reduced the need to have Windows (IE) while using web based products.

And none of those protocols will work without first having access to the Internet. And AFAIK consumer-grade routers are all configured with a browser!

[bangkockney]

The old question of the chicken and the egg

You do need a browser to download FF or Chrome

so IE needs to come with the package.

But not bound in, so that it cannot be removed later.

Win 7 allows safe removal of IE leaving any required dependencies (finally!)

[Guest]

The old question of the chicken and the egg

You do need a browser to download FF or Chrome

so IE needs to come with the package.

But not bound in, so that it cannot be removed later.

Not quite. There are other ways to download software than with browser.

ftp, scp, wget, ..

The rule to require MS to offer other browsers has been probably smartest rule from EU. It has woken up web services to make their products to work with other browsers as well. This has reduced the need to have Windows (IE) while using web based products.

And none of those protocols will work without first having access to the Internet. And AFAIK consumer-grade routers are all configured with a browser!

That's probably true. Still it would be quite special use case to install computer and home/company network at the same time. The network is probably there already when an user is installing new OS to the PC.

[cooked]

I still come upon websites occasionally that won't work with Firefox. English sites used to be major offenders, but this has improved. I have IE installed and have the Firefox extension 'view in IE' available with a right mouse click.

[Guest]

I still come upon websites occasionally that won't work with Firefox. English sites used to be major offenders, but this has improved. I have IE installed and have the Firefox extension 'view in IE' available with a right mouse click.

Situation has definitely improved over the last few years.

I'm using linux so I can not (and do not want) to install IE to to my computer. Just 1 year ago I still had to start VM with XP to run IE on my laptop to be able to login to Bangkok Bank Business website. They called this as an security feature.. I never felt like it. Nowdays the situation is better and they do accept Linux Firefox, which works fine.

One of the main reason why many companies did not upgrade their browsers from IE6 was that they had internal websites which only worked with that version. For microsoft this was great way to keep their customers using Windows and IE.. until they also figured out that they have a problem with customers who still use insecure IE6 browser