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scottie on 13 March 2013
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timmah said:
scottie said:
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?