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Microsoft To Be Fined E500M By European Union?
An anonymous reader writes "According to a Reuters story, the European Commission is in the process of fining Microsoft 497 million Euros ($613 million). The most important reason for the fine was the refusal by Microsoft to share more information about its products with competitors. Mario Monti, the EU competition commissioner, decided to impose the fine after talks with Microsoft broke down last week." The last estimate was a mere 100 million Euros, and it's noted: "If the full European Commission backs the fine as expected on Wednesday it would exceed the 462 million euro penalty imposed on Hoffman-La Roche AG in 2001 for being ringleader of a vitamin cartel."
~ The Timeline ~
March 25, 2004 Microsoft fined E497M by the EU.
April 05, 2004 Microsoft files appeal.
June 11, 2004 Verdict upheld.
June 22, 2004 Microsoft contributes heavily to the Republican party.
July 05, 2004 EU declared part of the "Axis of Evil"
July 13, 2004 Colin Powell declares the EU has "Weapons of mass destruction, without a doubt."
July 27, 2004 US troops roll into the EU to promote Bush's "World Liberation '04" re-election campaign.
Trolling is a art,
Nothing strikes fear into the hearts of your enemies like being "the ringleader of a vitamin cartel." :)
What is E500M in Windows 98SE licenses?
We Eurocits can get a tax rebate too! Thanks, BG!
Hang on. This is all going to pay for around 4 days of the CAP. Big deal.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
All I wanted was sharks with freaking lasers on their heads?
How freaking hard is that?
I like you, Stuart. You're not like everyone else, here, at Slashdot.
What are the chances Bill G. & Co. will pay off the fine by buying cheap laptops in NYC and selling them in Europe while dodging the VAT?
Can you even say that phrase with a straight face and not think of Fred Flintstone as a Columbian drug lord?
"...today consumers have been conditioned to think of beer when they see a bullfrog..."
"Cash okay..?" <while reaching for his wallet>
the EU will get to the moon and Mars before us.
What doesn't kill you only delays the inevitable
Step 1) Eliminate Competition
Step 2) Profit! ($40 Billion in cash)
Step 3) Get fined $0.5 Billion for being naughty
Step 4) More profit!
Value of fine benefits of bad behavior. Bad behavior continues...
"EU investigators found the price fixing started in the vitamin A and E market in the 1990s,"
Oh those crazy 90s.... They always said vitamin A was the gateway vitamin, but we never ever listen to the signs.
Yes. I beleive that would be a first for this administration- correctly guessing who has them.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
- All your BMW and Mercedes cars
- The jet engines from your aircraft (invented by Sir Frank Whittle in Britain in 1945)
- All your nuclear weapons and X-Ray machines (since radioactivity was discovered by the French Marie Curie in the 19th century)
- The ideas that the Wright Brothers stole from Leonardo Da Vinci (Italian)
By return of post, we will send back:
- Macdonalds
- All our Hoover vacuum cleaners (since we now have the much superior British Dyson vacuum cleaners)
- "Charmed", "Smallville" & "Dawson's Creek" (however, we'd like to keep a copy of "The Simpsons" just to remember you guys by!)
Ciao, toodle pip and au revoir.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Mario Monti: "Here's the plan. We fine Microsoft and we hold them ransom for......five hundred MILLION dollars!"
EUC Number Two: "Uh huh hum. Well, don't you think we should maybe ask for more than five hundred million dollars? Five hundred million dollars isn't exactly a lot of money these days. The EUC alone makes over ninety billion dollars a year."
Mario Monti: "Really?"
EUC Number Two: "Uh huh!"
Mario Monti: "That's a lot. Okay then. We hold Microsoft ransom for..... five hundred BILLION dollars!!"
*Evil Laughter*
- All your BMW and Mercedes cars
Fine - they are unrealiable: we are keeping the Japanese cars tho.
> The jet engines from your aircraft (invented by Sir Frank Whittle in Britain in 1945)
You can have the prototypes the he never managed to get working - took the Germans to do that, and the US to perfect them.
> All your nuclear weapons and X-Ray machines (since radioactivity was discovered by the French Marie Curie in the 19th century)
Yeah she really did a bang up job with that, eh?
> The ideas that the Wright Brothers stole from Leonardo Da Vinci (Italian)
OK here you have me - the wearable bat suits and cork screw helicopters powered by men walking around in circles are all yours.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
In the OS I installed,
Lived a player,
By Microsoft,
And it told us what to do,
With our music and DVDs,
So we took it to the EC,
And we told them what we found,
And they gave Bill a big fine,
And they told him to take it out,
-Chorus-
We don't need your stinking DRM,
We are European,
We are European,
Bill can stick his codecs in the bin,
We are European,
We are European.
And our friend is little Tux,
Cos he let's us do what we please,
Bill can go and boil his head,
While we drink beer from Ballmer's skull
-Chorus-
We don't need your stinking DRM,
We are European,
We are European,
Bill can stick his codecs in the bin,
We are European,
We are European.
Now we live a life of ease,
Everyone of us,
Is European,
We can play the tunes we like
We can watch the films we need
We don't pay no MS tax
We are free from DRM
-Chorus-
We don't need your stinking DRM,
We are European,
We are European,
Bill can stick his codecs in the bin,
We are European,
We are European.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Shut up. They'll take back the porn!
That's almost too good... pad it up with a few hundred words, do something fancy to it in word, and sell it to M$ as a "business case"... Welcome to the world of "consulting"...
Shift happens. Fire it up.
Hmm, yeah but $4 is what, about 50pence nowadays ? I think the worst thing Europe produced in the last few cenuries was America. Look at Australia, we may have screwed up the first time but we got it right in the end. Why can't all you try and be more like Australia ?
So Microsoft, why not just say "We are not paying and we will pull all of our products off your shelf and reject any licenses from your government office for updates to any Microsoft products".
Obama = Socialism.
- Fine Microsoft scary amount of cash (just for show)
- Have Microsoft appeal in the most painstaking, bogged-down way imaginable
- Watch incredible amounts of $$$ flow into the European legal business and become EUR=> Profit
Do you now see the brilliance? All that cash being siphoned off from America's flourishing legal system, will be transferred directly to Europe. And the best thing is, Microsoft is doing all the dirty work for us!Divide et impera!
AFAIK both the UK and France have nuclear weapons.
Surely you mean nucular weapons?
Organic free-range music... yum!