Microsoft has had to pay heavy fines for anti trust practices in Europe. This was mainly not against its operating system Windows by for having Internet Explorer as the default browser and hence ending up killing other browsers. The main complaint was a browser was very different from a OS and the two shouldn’t be bundled into each other. This did hurt Netscape quite a bit and made Internet Explorer the dominant browser the world over.
Mircrosoft has lost a anti-trust case in Europe and has paid a fine along with informing customers of other products. Here is a screenshot of what XP, Vista and Windows7 users will see if their OS has been purchased in Europe.
About Microsoft’s anti-trust issues
- I touched on Microsoft’s anti-trust issues briefly in my post about if Google is turning evil. But the main issue here is that Microsoft used its dominance of Operating system markets to indirectly force people to use Internet Explorer.
- This is true but does it not open a can of worms. I mean can Twitter and Facebook claim anti-trust movement against Google for introducing Buzz through Gmail in which they are dominant. That will not happen probably as supposedly Gmail has to own about 80 percent of the market which it does not.
- So now Microsoft has to come up with this option for it’s windows users and inform them of other browsers. I personally feel that is wrong. Rules should be equal to all. No one requires Apple to put up such a message on its Mac OS. In the case of Google Chromium they claim their browser is the OS or rather the other way around.
- These anti-trust motions do have uses but still feel intent of dominating a market should not be illegal rather practices should be. Google has not been unscathed from the anti-trust motion as when it tried to buy Yahoo Search, it was not allowed by US courts claiming they already are dominating the search domain and cannot buy out competitors.
What do you think about anti-trust? It might have breathed a new life into open-source technologies being more available and that is a good fallout but does it actually go against the notion of doing business in a organized way. Should actions be made illegal or intent be made illegal. Do let me know your thoughts on this through your comments.
Link: Gizmodo