This whole pretend 'issue' is one of the most asinine things I've ever heard. First of all, Microsoft implemented this voluntarily to help placate these officials, so now they're getting a massive fine for a mistake related to a VOLUNTARY action that is not necessary in the first place? Do these pencil pushing thugs actually think that Europeans are not smart enough to search, download, click, install? Obviously the public there is smart enough, since IE has abysmally low market share in the EU (meaning people actually installed their browser of choice regardless). Also, shouldn't fines like this be for a real monopoly, not some imagined one made up by useless bureaucrats? IE's market share is well below 50% in the EU, so there is actually NO MONOPOLY ISSUE AT ALL in the browser market there! There should be no fine for this made up non-issue.

The EU is fucking ridiculous, they're not doing this to punish Microsoft, they're doing this for the money.

Having to give options to download other browsers like this, how hard is it to go to a fucking site and press download? Again the EU are cunts.

It seems high, but you have to consider

It was either deliberate, or caused by a deliberate policy of not checking to make sure that they are obeying the law.

MS makes so much money in general, and would have made so much extra money in the long term from extra people using their services (They bundle Bing into I.E. which they bundle into Windows) that a 'sensible' fine would be completely unnoticed by MS.

It's why some countries have speeding fines as a % of income. A $100 fine is going to reduce how much poor people speed, but the rich will just continue to speed and pay the fines as required.

What are you talking about? This is not even about obeying any law, it's about a step Microsoft voluntarily took to placate officials (who had no justifiable case in the first place) having technical problems. There is no antitrust 'monopoly' law being broken when the browser in question (IE) has well below 50% market share in the EU. There's absolutley zero evidence that IE has any semblance of a monopoly in the EU or anywhere in the world. There shouldn't have been even a $1 fine because nothing illegal was done at any point during this made up 'issue'. MS did wrong in Windows 95/98 by locking down competing browsers, nothing like that has happened in this case. It's a bunch of self-important bureaucrats who have to make themselves feel useful by taking on the 'evil' corporations, even if no laws were broken. In reality, the EU is the bully in this case.

No, you are incorrect. Laws were broken, MS's actions were not voluntary. Please read up on the topic before attempting to discuss it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_Microsoft_competition_case

MS was breaking the law

the EU announced it was going to investigate

MS chose to stop breaking the law

The EU chose to stop investigating, effectively letting MS off with a warning.

MS chose to break the law again (or did it by accident, which is still not a defence)

the EU fined them.

The only thing MS volunteered to do was stop breaking the law, and they couldn't even keep that promise.

It may be true in America that corporations can get away with anti competitive behaviour, but not in Europe. In Europe, using your monopoly in one area to prevent competition for a seperate service of yours is illegal.

As for whether the self important beaurocrats were right to enforce the laws, that is a subjective thing and I will not be able to convince you that they were right to do something that will lead to increased competition, better products and better prices, and you will not be able to convince me that they were wrong. So how about we just call it a day with you having learnt a bit about competition law?

I thought the fine was a little high for something like this.

Always nice to see someone put in their place.

You seem to be fairly in-the-know regarding this topic so I'm hopng you can answer something for me about it. 

As someone who doesn't know much about competition law this fine does seem unfair to me, but only because it appears as though MS in particular is getting picked on.

As an example, why does MS have to promote Google's browser on Windows when no Android device on the planet has to promote Bing in any way shape or form? What is it specifically about MS that makes this fine reasonable when no other software giant seems to have to abide by the same rules? I can't remember ever loading up an iPhone for the first time and seeing an option to use any service for downloading songs other than iTunes, either.

What's up with that?

MS broke the law...twice, apparently, and they were warned. This sort of thing may seem extreme to people in the US, but if the EU is going to fine Microsoft for breaking the law, it should be enough to actually make them think twice in the future. It's not as if this is going to severely hurt the long term prospects of Microsoft in the future. It will just encourage to not break the law in the future, whether on purpose or by accident.

lol u sound like its ur money