This isn't true; there are numerous situations where Natural Monopolies are desirable and optimal.
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Microsoft Prepares For a Huge EU Fine (maximum 10% of last year's revenues)
- Thread starter guit3457
- Start date
The point isn't to punish them for being successful, the point is to punish them because they took their earned success in the OS market and used it as a club to unfairly beat up competitors in another nearby market (browsers).
Apple never had an effective monopoly in the smartphone market the same way Microsoft did back when this lawsuit occurs and still does.
IE dwindling in market share is a sign that this type of action is warranted and given free choice without constraint people will pick a different browser.
You seam to have missed the point. Whether it was to be used by a home consumer or an enterprise user Microsoft was using it's own foothold in the desktop market to promote it's other products to it's users through lack of choice and with this software pre-installed. That is pretty much the definition of what anti-trust is.
Chromebooks are hardly in the top 1% of pc users and Apple may have a brand recognition but don't even equate to 10% of the market where as even the aging Windows XP has a 19.9% market share.
To be fair, the original anti-trust ruling did not require a monopoly. It required sufficient market impact to undually affect market share in other areas. While that was easy to demonstrate in the case of Windows, the EU has found in other cases that the bar could be reached in certain circumstances with a marketshare that was nothing like a monopoly - sometimes about 50%.
That certainly is the sort of territory where Google and Apple sit.
I think the EU will do something to both of them eventually - Google for search, Apple for the App Store and in-app purchases in particular. But the MS ruling took a very, very long time, and the same will apply to any ruling on Google or Apple.
Xenon
Member
So people in EU are unable to download another browser? Btw who has to pay for the cost of adding the software to their image? Which browser gets lucky enough to be included? Wouldn't that be unfair to the others? .
With the global economy being what it is I see this as nothingmore tgan fleecing a comoany with deep pockets.
With the global economy being what it is I see this as nothingmore tgan fleecing a comoany with deep pockets.
Europe isn't America. 7bn is an absolute fortune over there. I'm just saying that obscene fines are just a way of for the EC to appropriate funds from successful companies like Microsoft. 10% of annual profit is ridiculous. You don't see the same crackpot fines being applied to Microsoft for the same reason in any other jurisdiction do you? It's only the EU that pulls this sort of nonsense. If they asked for a reasonable fine, you know, not fining them for every penny they have, it would make sense, but 7bn is just obscene.
What legal recourse does Microsoft now have? They can't fight it in the mostly impartial courts of the European nation states, they have to fight it in the stacked ECJ and that won't be a fair hearing at all.
I didn't know IE constrained you from typing firefox.com in it's address bar, the action was not needed and the fact that the 6 months the alternative wasn't offered did nothing to stop IEs decline is proof of that.
I don't need the EU to tell me fire is hot and that I shouldn't touch it.
So now were splitting up monopolies into separate categories? Apple did have a effective monopoly but a competitor beat them out.
So should Microsoft stop offering any software on Windows?
Where would you stop?
The entire logic behind you argument relies on the idea that people are not smart enough to look for alternatives.
Government doesn't care if your firm is successful or not, they care about people living and working in their country.
And no Apple doesn't have any monopoly be it smartphones, tablets PC you name it. Same as Nokia wasn't monopolist earlier. Apple can have biggest market share of smartphones but smartphones are still phones and they were never accounted as different product.
Apple would have monopoly if it had 80-90% of total phone market not just market of fancy phones few years ago.
You still don't get idea that they are fined for using monopoly to kill competition not because they are big.
If MS didn't have 90% of the OS market there would have been no case in the first place.
Look up Bell Telphone and Standard Oil.
Internet browsers is not the monopoly, pc operating systems is. Abusing that to circumvent competition in other markets is the problem.
Look up Bell Telphone and Standard Oil.
Internet browsers is not the monopoly, pc operating systems is. Abusing that to circumvent competition in other markets is the problem.
Ha, the old 'You'll never stop all crime, so why bother enforcing law?' nonsense. The mere fact that there is a choice offered makes it obvious that there is choice, which is what the root of the problem was in the first place.
electroshockwave
Member
When MS was including it users would get a selection screen like this:
MS went back on their promise and stopped including this. That's what they are getting fined for.
Coulomb_Barrier
Member
No they should offer choice and that is what they have been told to do via their ruling. I'm not making any argument merely stating what they have been charged with and what is the law but you do seam to be ignoring the facts.
I was perfectly able to install Firefox and Chrome without the fucking popup. To be honest I am a little bit irritated every time I install a computer and see that popup.
Can Crusher
Banned
These guys are fucking mental. Really it's just a con to take money from MS, this shit has been going on forever.
How much of an asshole do you have to be to ask a company to provide consumers with the competing product.
How much of an asshole do you have to be to ask a company to provide consumers with the competing product.
I'm sorry but in my mind this is the dumbest thing I've ever heard...
I'm not ignoring any facts I just disagree with the idea that we need a governmental body like EU to tell us there are alternatives.
Good for you
The point of this is that most people didn't know there was a choice beforehand and if they did were not sure how to install other browsers
Yes, ordinary users really do have this much trouble with basic PC functions
That isn't the case. MS as monopolist can't use its own software as default software for common use.
WMP was in earlier Windows version default system media player. IT never asked you if you wish to use it as media software.
Now when you start some media after instalation it ask you that if you want to use it as default software.
People may be smart or may be stupid it doesn't matter.
What I don't understand though is why closed platforms like Apple's iOS get a free pass. Even Chrome is forced to use the Safari engine. But that probably isn't on-topic
Xenon
Member
What crime? Unless that money is going Netscape, I don't see this making much sense. All the current competitors in the browsers went into the market knowing that IE is bundled with the OS.
What I don't understand though is why closed platforms like Apple's iOS get a free pass. Even Chrome is forced to use the Safari engine. But that probably isn't on-topic
As repeatedly mentioned, they don't. It just takes a long time for these things to happen.
What I don't understand though is why closed platforms like Apple's iOS get a free pass. Even Chrome is forced to use the Safari engine. But that probably isn't on-topic
Because it is not using a 90% market share to sidestep consumer choices with other software. It's really not that complicated guys.
Anyone who's done IT support should know that.
What I don't understand though is why closed platforms like Apple's iOS get a free pass. But that probably isn't on-topic
Because Apple isn't monopolist and its market share only look good in comparison to individual competition but not to total market.
For example Apple PC are probably somewhere like 5 to 7 % at best of total OS market. Their iOs is dwarfed by android
I fully expect that Google in near future will be fined if their mobile OS will grow so fast.
Sir_Crocodile
Member
What I don't understand though is why closed platforms like Apple's iOS get a free pass. Even Chrome is forced to use the Safari engine. But that probably isn't on-topic
Because they don't have a monopoly on phone OS.
Looking at where Windows is headed it's not far fetched to see that that wouldn't be possible in a few years if MSFT is left unchecked.
And seriously where were you megacorp cheerleaders when other compnies were fined like that?
It's not ok because it's fine on a US company?
Jesus, I wasn't referring to an actual crime, it's an analogy, in response to your line of thinking that because you didn't include all browsers ever in the 'choice' that it wasn't worth offering any choice at all.
I think the point is that MS has previously abused its Monopoly on the desktop OS to destroy another company (see: Netscape). If they had embraced the open platform that they themselves made, then Windows would've shipped with a number of browsers or this browser choice screen.
It's not strictly about the Government telling us there are alternatives, it's about Microsoft acting to purposefully and unfairly stifle competition. The EU levying this fine is just them enforcing a stable free market, instead of allowing companies to use their size and influence to unfairly gain an advantage in other markets.
In short, I 100% agree with this fine. Quite frankly, I think they should've gone higher. This kind of, "Whoops, we 'accidentally' screwed up!" behaviour reeks of Microsoft pushing their luck. They're lucky it didn't hit €1bn, which would've been headline-grabbing and historic for all the right reasons.
To the people saying EU doesn't look at Apple or Google, they absolutely have. Apple have been investigated for e-book pricing, and Google have been investigated for privacy practices. I'm not saying these are the same as abusing market monopolies but they are all examples of EU policy protecting consumers.
The EU is not there telling Microsoft about offering alternative that are charging them with being anti-competative. They are instructing them that they must allow other companies to at least be allowed to compete and not be diminished by pre installed software, sometimes with hooks into the system that acts as a default regardless what else you chose to install. It's not end users that have brought this to the attention of the EU but the competing companies themselves.
I'd object less if it was a national government made up of elected representatives and not unelected bureaucrats. At least that way we know they're carrying out the will of the people. It seems if this thread is anything to go by the will of the people isn't to penalise Microsoft into the ground for ridiculous sleights.
Yeah, google should be hit hard for that.
No google, I don't want to switch to your browser. I already told you so 5 times.
DESTROYA
Member
Then those people should be fined and have there computers taken away.
1) because earlier internet explorer was tied to windows. They did not "bundle" it. It was pre-instaled and used as default web browser which was alone strictly tied to system. You couldn't uninstall Internet Explorer and IE always worked even if you were using other browsers.
2) Because mobile OS market is rather new thing. If Android will dwarf competition they will be on watch list for things like google as default searching engine.
Google Chrome is best case of that law working. Go to your options and see search engine. They already have preinstalled most of search engines in web including MS BING which you can choose as default search engine using Chrome.
Firstly, despite people telling you this before, the fine is not 7bn!
Secondly, if you are using this thread as a guide to the will of the people then you should at least write it, 'The will of the (to a large extent American) people' which hardly seems relevant for an EU fine.
The will of whom? Microsoft fans in the US?
I'm all for having more democratic decision making in the EU, but if you polled the EU public right now on whether or not MS should be fined what do you honestly think would be the result?
Anyway, this is a matter of law, not public opinion.
MSFT would be put in pieces and kicked out of the EU if that was up to the will of the people :lol.
Well yes. Law is formed on public opinion. That's the definition of democracy. I have no problem with anti-trust legislation but the EU is completely ridiculous in the way it goes about it. Nintendo, Microsoft, Google. The EU isn't the only country with anti-trust legislation but you don't see national governments of the EU raise any noise about this, nor any other state around the world.
Not only that but the legal remedies for breaching anti-trust in most jurisdictions doesn't equate to 10% of yearly revenue or something ridiculous like that, they're usually far more measured. (Yes, I get it, they're not being fined 7bn, but the fact that it was an option is ridiculous).
So public opinion is the basis of law, but it should not be the basis of law when you disagree with the results of the law. Cool.
The reason the national governments of the EU don't is because they don't have to.
Think about why that might be.
Hint:
It's not because the EU is using corporate fines to bankroll the Euro crisis
You mean the same USA that dropped the case for some dubious reasons after the DoJ changing because of an election?
ReBurn
Gold Member
It doesn't need to be that extreme. I think that overall it's a silly point of contention.
In my experience people who can barely operate their computers don't really care what web browser they use. So they aren't actually hurt by fewer initial choices. As they level up they hear of other options and find them. It's the organic nature of learning.
Personally I find the browser monopoly thing silly. I don't understand how forcing an uninformed choice on people is better for them in the long run. IE is an appropriate entry level browser because it is well integrated with the Windows ecosystem. As people learn to use it they will learn their options.
For those of you in the EU who support this, was it a pop up that enlightened you about other browsers? Would you have ever been able to install another browser on your own without it?
The European Commission's members are nominated by each individual member state (the governments of which are elected) and approved by the European Parliament, which is directly elected. If people had to vote for each minute level of the EU directly there would be so much apathy I doubt it would be any more democratic.
Yes I would, however my dad wouldn't and he now uses Firefox because of the pop-up box.
They are fined that much because they neglected what EU told them to do. As of "radiculus" fine. Fine is created to teach them a lesson. 30mln or even 100mln$ for company like MS is not that much.
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