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timmah on 19 March 2013
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scottie said:
timmah said:

<snip>


At the first part of it. You are right that it is not 100% chance that it is illegal, otherwise the EU would have fined them instead of saying that they would start an investigaton. But the only reason MS made that voluntary agreement was because they thought that the investigation would probably go against them.

At the open markets point, I am neither big government or small government. For every decison, I find as much information about the effects, or potential effects of the decision and ask myself which world I would rather live in. You judge the government's actions, I judge the results. The results of the browser ballet were a reduction in MS's monopoly, and increased competiton, as any good Capitalist knows leads to improved results for consumers.

As for the fine being too large, that depends if we're looking at the justice system as a way to get justice/revenge for past crimes, or to prevent future crimes. A smaller fine would do for the former, but not for the latter. You obviously see the justice system as a way that criminals get what they deserve? I think that's the wrong focus, a justice system based around stopping reoffending is going to lead to a better world to live in.

I agree that the offer was made because MS thought the decision would go against them. In my opinion this is because MS new that, even if they were actually not breaking any law, the EU is so stacked against them that there was no point defending against the charges.

I think only judging the results is very dangerous, as the 'ends justify the means' argument is the one used by pretty much every dictator and tyrannical government in world history. I'm not saying the EU is that by any stretch, but this mindset is a dangerous and slippery slope that can be misused when (not if) the wrong people come to power. I disagree that the browser ballot had any affect on MS losing market share, the trend line did not change when the ballot went into place, nor did IE's decline slow at all when the browser ballot was not working with SP1, so there was no effect on market share trend lines based on the browser ballot, meaning the ballot was not necessary to ensure fair competition. The market actually did this regardless of any outside meddling. In fact, the largest factor in IE's accelerated decline based on trend lines was the introduction and growing popularity of Google's Chrome browser.

I believe the justice system is for both justice and for deterrance of future crimes. Where I disagree is that, even after reading about the law in question, I don't see any case that an actual crime was committed to begin with in this case.