EU fines Microsoft $733M for breaking word on IE

AMSTERDAM The European Union Commission has fined Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) 561 million euro ($733 million) for breaking the terms of an earlier agreement to offer users a choice of internet browser.

The penalty is a first for Brussels -- no company has ever failed to keep its end of a bargain with EU authorities before.

In 2009, Microsoft agreed to pay a 860 million euro fine and promised to give Windows users the option of choosing another browser rather than having Internet Explorer automatically installed.

But Microsoft failed to stick to the deal for some 15 million installations of Windows 7 in Europe from May 2011 until July 2012. The company admitted the failure last year, adding that it was a mistake.

The commission's top regulator, Joaquin Almunia, said at a press conference in Brussels, Belgium Wednesday that negotiated settlements are vital for enforcement to be carried out quickly. But he warned that the whole point would be undermined if companies then don't abide by the terms of the settlement.

"They must do what they committed to do, or face the consequences," he said.

Almunia added that the large fine took into account the size and length of time the company violated the terms of its agreement, as well as the need to defer other companies from backsliding on their promises to competition authorities. He said the fine was less than it might have been because Microsoft had co-operated with the investigation.

A Microsoft spokesman said the company would respond later Wednesday. In all, the company has now paid a grand total of 2.2 billion euro in fines to the commission since it began its first investigation into the company's abuse of market power linked to its dominant Windows operating systems, in 1998.

[TJphoto]

Microsoft is just the un-animated version of Pinky and the Brain.

[dsouzarobert]

The European Commission imposed the penalty four years ago — a record at the time — after Microsoft defied an antitrust ruling issued four years previously to provide information to make business easier for its rivals.

On the same issue in the US Judge Jackson issued his findings of fact[13] on November 5, 1999, which stated that Microsoft's dominance of the x86 based personal computer operating systems market constituted a monopoly, and that Microsoft had taken actions to crush threats to that monopoly, including Apple, Java, Netscape, Lotus Notes, RealNetworks, Linux, and others. Judgment was split in two parts. On April 3, 2000, he issued his conclusions of law, according to which Microsoft had committed monopolization, attempted monopolization, and tying in violation of Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act. Microsoft immediately appealed the decision.On 2000-06-07, the court orders a breakup of Microsoft as its remedy. According to that judgment, Microsoft would have to be broken into two separate units, one to produce the operating system, and one to produce other software components.

After Bush was elected Microsoft appealed The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals which overturned Judge Jackson's rulings.

http://www.the-american-times.com/

[Choons]

good. For web developers, Internet Explorer has forced us to write two versions of everything we produce- one for EVERY other browser that adheres to web standards and one for IE whose developers still refuse to see the light. Except for the shady tactics they just got nailed for AGAIN, IE would have died the death it needs to several years ago.

[foo8259]

Yeah, I dislike and try to avoid IE centric web sites that won't work correctly in alternate browsers because they use IE only tricks and features that only work fully on the web developers personal workstation.