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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."
Fine This Fine FP!
~ 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
From the article:
The fine amounts to slightly more than one percent of Microsoft's roughly $53 billion cash on hand and did not impress analysts and critics.
"This is a traffic ticket for Microsoft," said Thomas Vinje of Clifford Chance, who represents Microsoft critics.
Neil Macehiter, an analyst with London-based technology research firm Ovum, said even a $3 billion fine would have been "an irritant to Microsoft but certainly wouldn't break the bank."
Rule #1 -- Politics always trumps technology.
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.
It's nice to see that some governmental anti-trust bodies have the backbone to stand up to Microsoft. Rather than finding them guilty of anti-trust laws, then slapping them on the wrist....
I am concerned about any program, any piece of hardware, any treaty, any law that treats me as a consumer, not a citizen
Half a billion dollars is nothing to MS if they are allowed to continue their practices.
Thats just cost of operating to Bill.
but does this hurt MicroSoft's ability (and willingness) to do the same behaviour again and again?
Doubtful.
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
Are you Straight?
Are you white?
Join the straight white association or whatever
I 3 trolls.
why would MS have to comply? Couldnt they just say 'okay, BYE' and not sell in Europe anymore? I know MS sells a lot in europe.... but who would be more injured by such a move, MS or the EU?
or is there some international law that says MS MUST comply?
not a troll, just some questions, as IANAL.
How many fucking times must I read about the same thing over and over? Perhaps an updating feature that will simply add to older stories might be appriopriate for things like this when we get a story or two a day on the same topic. Really, I understand the needs of the linux fanboys that latch onto the MS hatred with a passion, but this is absurd. Oh, wait, I'm pissing people with mod points off... uhhh.. beowolf cluster I'd buy that for a dollar in soviet russie story posts you all your base are belong to us linux linux linux linux linux linux linux linux linux linux linux linux linux linux linux linux linux
They can't earn money, so they try to steal it from successful U.S. Companies.
We should have bombed France and Germany, not Iraq...
The troll users.pl has engaged in part of a covert mission by Anti-Slash to select zealots who will be targets for modbombing. He does this by encouraging zealots to show their colors and mark the user windows as a foe. The target will then be selected from the freaks list of that user. Windows does not play a part in the operation, but his freaks list is used because of his convenient choice of user name.
Stop Anti-Slash now and mark users.pl as a foe. Also mark windows as a friend. Keep yourself off the list of targets for the trolls at Anti-Slash to strike.
Remember, the goal of Anti-Slash is not to protect your freedoms but to destroy Slashdot. Fight them. Don't let yourself become a target of their evil and childish ways.
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?
The summary failed to mention that they will be forced to release a version of Windows without Media Player and 'encourage' the use of other media players. Good riddance to bad rubbish!
LilMikey.com... I'll stop doing it when you sto
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..."
It's good to know that European courts aren't as flawed as our American ones.
It almost restores your faith in humanity. Almost.
- Sherman
500M is nothing to ms.
"Cash okay..?" <while reaching for his wallet>
With $53 billion in the coffers, $613 million is a big ol' slap on the wrist.
At this rate Microsoft should go out business.... never!
Schnapple
redirect 'calcgames' over to, oh I dont know, sourceforge.
sick of these dumb poll trolls. at least this one was honest about it.
The article says that the major reason for the fines is Microsoft's refusal to license information to competitors to ensure compatibility.
In other words, the actual software that these laws protects is horrible stuff like RealOne and Quicktime. Open source projects can't afford to license things. I'll be even more impressed than I already am if Mplayer and the like can continue their higher quality in the face of such crappy capitalistic laws.
the EU will get to the moon and Mars before us.
What doesn't kill you only delays the inevitable
Would even US$750 Million be enough to get them to change their ways? Would they change if they took a dent in their corporate image? That being said, how much money would it get them to take to change their practices or how many dents? They seem to have alot of both already.
Victory is gained, not in knowing your opponents next move, but in preempting them.
hope that's the right reaction to this story
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
Step 1) Eliminate Competition
Step 2) Profit! ($40 Billion in cash)
Step 3) Get fined $0.5 Billion for being naughty
Step 4) More profit!
Value of fine benefits of bad behavior. Bad behavior continues...
M$ will appeal and in the end nothing will happen, just as with the similar case in USA.
Wow, that's like $5T!
(Yes, the joke seems to have shifted from CAN$ vs . US$ to US$ vs. EUR these days)
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
When are governments going to get a clue? Screw fines - almost no amount of money you can take from them will really have an effect on their behavior or the market. What the EU ought to do is to tell MS that if they want to do future business in Europe, they need to make the Office file formats an EMCA standard, and that any patents they have on the formats must be licenesed royalty-free. That would create real change and competition in the market - let them compete on implementation, as it ought to be!
The Free desktop that Just Works
I did not see a mention of the removal of media player. Is a fine the only recourse the EU has? Can they not see that cash is not something that will hurt MS but stripping windows down is? *sigh* Another slap on the wrist for a company that buys their way out of any legal troubles yet never addresses the real problems.
Stay tuned for new sig...
Woo Hoo!! This will teach evil monopolies like MS or DeBeers not to mess with us consumers...
Pfft, yea right. Like the corperations would ever let that happen.
Check out this Reuters Article. I'm sure you can find it online, it was sent to me via 'business watch'...
If you don't want to read it, here it is in a nutshell: There are seveal processes that exist that will keep the verdict in the court system for up to 7 years before any payout has to occur. By then? Who knows...
March 22, 2004 13:26:00 (ET)
By David Lawsky
BRUSSELS, March 22 (Reuters) -- Microsoft (MSFT,Trade) will win one thing after it loses a landmark EU antitrust case this week -- months and possibly years before it must do what the European Union executive orders, experts said on Monday.
The European Commission is scheduled to rule on Wednesday that Microsoft is an abusive monopolist which used the power of its dominant Windows operating system to damage competitors.
As soon as the ruling is issued, the U.S. software giant will go to court and be assured of months of delay.
Microsoft will be ordered to pay a fine of hundreds of millions of euros, the topic of an advisory committee of EU member states on Monday.
The Commission will order the company to sell a version of its operating system without Windows Media Player and to encourage computers makers to provide other audiovisual software.
And it must license information at a reasonable rate to make the low-level servers of rivals, used for printing and file services, more compatible with Windows desktop machines.
But as Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith said last week soon after settlement negotiations ended in failure: "Today is just another step in what could be a long process."
Microsoft has always made maximum use of courts to assert its rights and this will be no exception, experts say.
"There are enormous possibilities open to Microsoft to buy time," said David Wood, an antitrust lawyer for Howrey Simon.
The company will appeal the Commission ruling and ask the Court of First Instance to suspend remedies until the underlying case is decided. Until the court decides that first question the remedies are suspended.
BACK BURNER
"If they lose the application to suspend they can appeal that to the European Court of Justice. During that period -- the better part of a year -- it is likely the substantive case will be put on the back burner," Wood said.
The court case itself could take two or three years and an appeal will take an equal amount of time.
The Commission is expected to argue such a long delay will make its remedies irrelevant, because the market will have moved on and it will be too late to stop damage to other companies and to consumers.
Microsoft is expected to argue that if it is forced to carry out the remedies ordered by the Commission it cannot undo them and will suffer irreparable harm.
Some cases move on fast track, if one party agrees to narrow the issues and the Commission agrees to suspend the remedies. But that would pose no advantage for Microsoft.
"Microsoft clearly wants to have the issues examined as fully as possible. This seems to make it unlikely that they would wish to use the fast-track procedure," Wood said.
The worst case for Microsoft is that the remedies would begin to bite once an appeals court ruled they may not be suspended, which could take seven months or more.
The best case is that the remedies would be suspended until the case is finished, which could be seven years or more.
Even if the issues are suspended, the Commission is expected to move full steam ahead on two other investigations of Microsoft for business practices similar to those that got it in trouble this time.
And although the remedies may be suspended, the precedent set by the Commission in labelling Microsoft for its abuse of dominance will not disappear.
"You can expect the Commission to apply the precedent they have in their own decision in comparable cases regardless of whether the court delays the entry into force of their remedies," said Sven Voelcker, an antitrust lawyer with Wilmer, Cutler and Pickering in Brussels.
-Mark
Dovie'andi se tovya sagain.
But that means they couldn't sell their product AT ALL in Europe. They'll do this, but only assuming the amount they get fined exceeds the amount they are likely to make. So let's say Eurpoe fined them $100 Billion. They'd say "see ya" and pull out European operations. However, as is, I imaging they pay it and go on their way.
Unforunately, like all big businesses, any government fines or restrictions will inevitably be passed on down to their consumers. But I have a feeling none of this 500 million slap-on-the-wrist will go anywhere near Microsoft consumers. Expect to see price hikes in the future.
Corporations: your universal scapegoat for all society's ills.
AFAIK both the UK and France have nuclear weapons.
FISH USE ELECTRIC POWER TO DESTROY MASS MEDIA Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted! Reason: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
Oh yeah, Microsoft will pay some money. And they'll keep fighting in the courts.
Along the way they'll pay off European business leaders and politicians to continually pressure the courts and the judges.
And, of course, Microsoft could be banking on something that seems to be ever-so-close to happening: the complete dissolution of the EU. Then there will be no one to pay.
My sigs always suck.
It is about smacking them in the head to get their attention.
If Microsoft doesn't change its practices, we can see more fines such as this. Eventually, Microsoft will change.
It's only fitting that the ringleader of a virus cartel (the majority of viruses out there either specifically target M$, or require M$ software) get fined more than a vitamin cartel! Go EU!
A friend will come and bail you out of jail, a true friend will be sitting next to you saying, "damn that was fun!"
Well, I keep hearing talks about Microsoft being a monopoly and needing to be punished. But, what I want to know is what are they actually being punished for.
Bonus points go to who can tell me if that's good or bad.
Until Slashdot fixes the funny modifier, use insightful or interesting. The poster knows your intentions.
Sure, I know it was just a dumb bit to get a laugh, but try to keep this in mind, you anti-MS trolls, that Microsoft was doing poorly in the antitrust cases because they don't play the influence game with contributions to politicrits.
Sure, after Shrub took office, they let MS off the hook, but that was because the Republicans are evil pro-corporate goons, and apparently did this for Microsoft as a freebie.
The current ruling could set a useful precedent... with someone finally having the guts to intervene against illegal abuse of monopolies, Microsoft may finally have to pay for the damage it has done to the software industry and users
that only the Yids would fire deadly missiles at a quadriplegic. 1000 years is a long time--time enough for revenge? Allah is coming, and is he pissed!
"I think all foreigners should stop interfering in the internal affairs of Iraq"
-- Paul Wolfowitz, 7/21/2003
Yay about 1 euro each :)
I would prefer that we spend it on Space exploration, or even better, fund Open Source development to the tune of 500M euros... that would give some nice returns for the planet.
To be fair though, it should probably be spent on the 10 ex-soviet (and other) countries that are joining the EU in May... perhaps a moving in present (50Million euros investment in the infrastructure of each country would go a long way since their average income is relatively low).
Warhammer forums
EU: Hi Bill, want another blowjob?
:(
Bill: Sure, I could go for one of those.
*10 minutes later*
EU: People don't seem like me giving you blowjobs
Bill: So, lets go through some crazy legal proceedings, then slap my company with a fine we can make back in less than a year!
EU: Brilliant!
Backbone_My_Ass. The ONLY reason the EU is letting MS off the hook is that MS has the EU by the nuts; if the sourcecode got released, within a week windows would be unusable.
Candy-Coated Knowledge
"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.
Now Real's crapware and proprietary codec can get back some market share...that'll make the world a better place. "Millions of Euoropeans rejoice at finally being able to watch excellent .rm's again." Oh wait, they were never prohibited from it in the first place. The whole media player thing is pretty stupid; nothing about Windows prevented people from being able to download alternatives. Seems more like a way for some governments to pick up some free cash.
slashdot, news for crazed liberal socialist zealots
The real penalty for Microsoft is having to extract it's media player from the OS and collaborate with other software company media companies. This will increase their support costs in the long run.
humble and proud of it.
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*
Y'know, people should normally be able to write: "€" and get a real euro symbol, instead of having to using "E".
But it doesn't seem to work on /.
Does anyone know why all named character entities seem to get stripped out when I submit /. articles (using "HTML Formatted", of course).
Microsoft associate general counsel for Europe Horacio Gutierrez said in a statement the fine was unjustified. "We believe it's unprecedented and inappropriate for the Commission to impose a fine on a company's U.S. operations when those operations are already regulated by the U.S. government and the conduct at issue has been permitted by both the Department of Justice and the U.S. courts," he said.
I'm sorry, but if you trade into the EU, then you are expected to obey the laws of that market. Doesn't matter where the head office is. I'd have thought that Bill would employ lawyers with a clue - at least enough of a clue not to make a stupid statement like this.
613 million US dollars is nothing to Microsoft! They have billions of dollars in cash. Let's hope the final verdict consists of more than that. If the fine and removal of Windows Media Player are all that the EU is going to propose then I say why even bother. It amounts to a slap on the wrist. Not that any goverment body can really do anything to Microsoft. OSS is what will contain the beast and eventually take away it's bite.
1) Allow a company to eliminate competition.
2) Profit! (.5$B in cash)
3) Look the other way for a few years.
4) More profit!
It is really sad how they try to take down Microsoft. Through abusing their administration power. I hope European customers will pay for their administration's wrong decision. If the costs go up, it should be Europeans who should pay, not the rest of the world. Microsoft should cripple the Windows for Europe and raise the prices. Let Europe use open source and let them deal with the GPL problems. Let them see the real story behind GPL and GNU. Once the programmers figure out that they can't really keep the source with them, Europe will come back to Micorosft begging.
The lovely thing about having a monopoly is that you can simply pass this on to the public. EU citizens should consider this a tax increase.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
EU is smart to set the euro fine small, that way they can milk this cash cow for years to come.
I'm pretty sure that at least one of the European Union countries is involved in Microsoft's Shared Source program. If they don't pay the fine, the European Union could seize the copyright (in lieu of payment of the fine), get a copy of the code, and sell the source code to one of their own software companies. That would presumably be worth the 500 million euros, even ignoring any other assets that may exist.
;)
:)
Microsoft traditionally outsources most of their development, so there is no reason to think that the new company couldn't continue development. Possibly with the same Indian developers as are working on the Microsoft code
Maybe they will even open source it to fix the bugs
Think of it as affirmative action for European tech companies that were kept down by "the man." This could help equalize the playing field again!
(n/t)
Please note, that the official abbreviation for Euro is EUR.
Thank you.
What I am curious to know is what the EU will do with all that money. While a half billion eurodollars isn't all that much to MicroSoft, it could do wonders for the software developers of the European Union, especially if it funds local development of F/OSS media formats (i.e. the codecs, players, and authoring tools).
Were it me, I'd just remove support for EU languages from Windows and stop selling it in the EU. I'm up to my eyesockets with EU whining anyways. By the way, Microsoft sucks, too. Couldn't design or code their way out of a wet paper bag...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It's spelled H I T L E R. And it means the thread is over. O V E R ! ! !
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.
Godwyn must be rolling in his grave!
Every country that uses MS products should do this to MS.
Goverment: Cough up or we'll ban your products.
MS:Uhhhh, appeal, appeal, appeal, appeal. Damn OK.
In the end all it does is leech money from the US economy.
This fine is nothing more than a nuisance to them.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
Don't anyone else even bother replying to this troll. Jeez, AC, be a little more obvious in your trolling, could you?
They can earn their fine in interest, several times over...
One of the things I love about being in the field of computer science is that it is still young. Years and years from now, there will be discussions in history books about Microsoft and all the good/evil things that came about from their aggressive domination of the industry. This EU judgment may even be cited... "Microsoft began to lose power in the early 21st century as it fell victim to a barrage of heavy fines for anti-competitive behavior. In 2004, the software giant faced its stiffest fine yet from the European Union at $613 million dollars. While this was a drop in the bucket to a company with $40 billion in cash reserves, it set a precedent that other countries soon followed."
Magnatune: Quality (DRM-free) MP3/FLAC/
That's almost too good... pad it up with a few hundred words, do something fancy to it in word, and sell it to M$ as a "business case"... Welcome to the world of "consulting"...
Shift happens. Fire it up.
If it weren't for wise and helpful posts like yours, we would never know what to do with ourselves!
It's not chump change. It's a small but significant dent, which they've unceremoniously been given in spite of Ballmer's best efforts to talk the authorities down last week.
It's also widely rumoured to be accompanied by (a) a compulsion to ship a version of Windows with Media Player completely stripped out, in order to remove the artificial dominance Microsoft has secured over the multimedia world, and (b) heavy penalty conditions if Microsoft gets up to this stuff again, so lengthy court action can be replaced by abruptly hitting them when they're down. These are, for now, only rumours, since the ruling won't be made public until later this week. However, no-one's jumping up and down denying them, and it's well known that all the European parties and Microsoft have seen that ruling. Draw any conclusions from that you like, or wait to see for sure mid-week.
At any rate, this isn't meant to kill Microsoft. It's meant to make them behave, and to reopen competition in the marketplace for the benefit of the public. In that respect, it seems fairly well judged, assuming the above rumours are reasonably accurate.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
I'm so sick of all you US-hating, Europe-loving liberals. If you like it so much, FSCKING MOVE THERE. Oh wait, then you'd have to pay $4 a gallon for gasoline, and 18% sales tax on everything, but you'd get free medical care that you'd have to wait years to receive, and a free education which is worth, well, exactly what you pay for it.
Put the flamethrower down, I've lived there. I've worked there. Both the UK and the Continent. How about you? Been anywhere other than a backpacker hostel? Hmm, I thought so.
Lets see, what has Europe produced in the last century or so?
Colonialism
2 world wars
Communism
Socialism
You fucked up the Middle East with your stupid dismantling of the Ottoman Empire
You fucked up Africa
You want 'faith in humanity'? Of course you do, since your whole philosophical system rests on faith. Faith and Force, the destroyers of the modern world. Al Qaeda has faith that Allah will smile on them, you have faith that your inherently broken economic system will work 'somehow'.
Please, go join the world you're advocating, and leave the rest of us alone. 100% alone - no coming for handouts, no bailing out of wars, nothing.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
the article headline says $500 million and the article text says $497 million.
i say they fine m$ the 497 million and i keep the 3 million dollar mistake.
So... when MS pays the 0.5Gigaeuro fine, who gets the money?
-Colin
Microsoft will no longer provide free snacks and soft drinks for its programmers.
Fines are a weak response, as it has been stated over again, this is piss in a pond to the likes of Microsoft.
On the other hand, the European Commission has the power under Article 81 and 82 of the EC Treaty (which where anti-competitive behaviour is prohibited) to impose structural remedies: to insist upon corporate re-organisation or say an order to disclose information or to unbundle software. This would be a far more appropriate remedy that would actually be economically useful rather than a bit more cash in the bank for EU.
If the commission really has spine, it will seek this type of remedy rather than the easy way out. It may in fact seek a combination of fines and structural remedy, so we'll just have to wait and see.
A slap on the wrist fine never changes behavior of the offending party favorably. It does allow them to more effectively calculate the cost of continuing to break the law ("Screw you, E.U. Here's your money.").
A fine should at least make it unprofitable for me to commit the crime again. If I stole 1 million and was fined 1000 then that is not exactly going to stop me is it? So how much did MS make by violating the law? More then 500 million? Then they ain't gonna stop.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
First, establish the precedent with a fine that isn't outlandish. Wait for the appeals to go away.
Then fine MS for abusing their monopoly powers in other areas. I can hear the cash register, can't you?
"That'll be one internet browser violation ($1 billion), one office suite violation ($3 billion)..."
word processor, internet browser,
all it will do is cause price increases, When I buy an OS I expect things like a media player/browser ect not lots of barely compatible junk to be installed (real player, quicktime ect) I wonder why MS keeps getting the brunt of it when linux distro's and macs come with way more software than windows anyway.
I can't see how they possible use there windows market to create a monopoly in another market anyway, windows has always come with a media player its one of the reasons lots of people by it.
... at least according to this link, or am I missing something?
t en tlicense.asp
http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/ip/format/xmlpa
"Except as provided below, Microsoft hereby grants you a royalty-free license"
"Hey Barney, grab your glock, we're gwan ta pay a leel' visit to Mr. One-A-Day."
;-)
Sorry, just can't picture it.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
You might see it as stupid. I might see it as stupid. Most people will see it as someone feeling indignant about improper treatment. It's spin, nothing more. I highly doubt this is anything approaching the actual opionion on the matter.
Large corporations such as microsoft simply do whatever they please until they get caught. The financial gain is high enough to warrant the miniscule fines imposed - and then they just keep on doing what they were doing before, until they get fined 4 years down the line for the same thing, all the while making buckets of cash.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
nuff said
President Clinton (1998): "One way or the other, we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them. That is our bottom line."
... He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation. ... And now he is miscalculating America's response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction. So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real."
Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright (February 1998): "Iraq is a long way from here, but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face."
In 2002, Al Gore said, "We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country."
Also in 2002, Sen. Ted Kennedy said, "We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction."
Sen. John Kerry, Democratic presidential front-runner, said in 2002, "I will be voting to give the president of the United States the authority to use force -- if necessary -- to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security."
In January 2003, Kerry added, "Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime.
The fact of the matter is that former President Clinton, as well as many members of Congress, believed, just as President Bush did, that Saddam Hussein possessed or was developing biological, chemical and nuclear weapons. The widespread attacks on President Bush are little more than political demagoguery and grandstanding and depend on public forgetfulness and ignorance to succeed.
I'm sorry, but if you trade into the EU, then you are expected to obey the laws of that market. Doesn't matter where the head office is. I'd have thought that Bill would employ lawyers with a clue - at least enough of a clue not to make a stupid statement like this.
I'm not trying to flame you here, but c'mon. Of course Microsoft knows this! This is politics and marketing spin. You appeal to the investors and consumers who don't understand politics, economics, and the law by giving them a highly emotional argument, especially one that turns the issue into an "us vs. them" argument and tries to make the EU sound unfair. It won't work on everyone, like slashdotters, who already know and no amount of spin will change our minds, and they can't make it sound any worse than we already think they are. Might as well scrap for a few extra minds somewhere who might as yet be undecided. When neither the law or the facts are on your side, pound on the desk.
What I find interesting is the fact that the ommited the fact that they were found Guilty by the US and that these types of actions were in fact not permitted! However, the penalty phase broke down when we changed administrations and the US government settled. Again, pounding on the desk, and this time stretch the truth about the facts.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
Microsoft associate general counsel for Europe Horacio Gutierrez said in a statement the fine was unjustified. "We believe it's unprecedented and inappropriate for the Commission to impose a fine on a company's U.S. operations when those operations are already regulated by the U.S. government and the conduct at issue has been permitted by both the Department of Justice and the U.S. courts," he said.
"I'm sorry, but if you trade into the EU, then you are expected to obey the laws of that market. Doesn't matter where the head office is. I'd have thought that Bill would employ lawyers with a clue - at least enough of a clue not to make a stupid statement like this."
There is prescidence for allowing this penalty to go through even on the U.S. side of Microsoft's operations. In the early 1990s, during the recession, the great State of California (excuse me, California Republic!) issued a corporate tax that was based upon the worldwide income of corporations operating in California. To my knowledge, the federal government did not intervene with this nor did NAFTA or the WTO strike it down. So I doubt Microsoft crying "uncle" will prevent the EU from doing whatever it pleases in this issue. If the EU was able to say "no" to Mr. Jack Welch, they can say "no" to Mr. Gates.
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
I have some things for sale that might help your cause. Please visit my online catalog.
Sincerly,
Dr. Freidrich E. DeSpayr, MD, Ph.D, Ev.D
Chairman and Chief Evil Officer, World Domination LLC
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
"Do you have change for a Billion?"
Well, I know there's a bit more to it than that, but c'mon... Rather than open up some bits to competitors, they'll take a fine. I'd do the same.
Bill Gates is worth 40 billion or such right? That's like asking me to pay a $600 fine, big whoop.
Please don't feed the troll, especially not a brainwashed one.
Some scandinavian countries (sweden and finland?) have this system where a traffic fine is based on income if i remember correctly.
Seems fair to me.
URL to an article with a possible explanation about the "WMD" fiasco.. it fits with other data that can be found..
http://rense.com/general50/sdef.htm
Makes you wonder how much of this cash ever makes it back to the station.;-) My guess is, not much!
picpix image polls. create - share - vote. fun!
It's not really stupid, it's arrogant. It's another sign of the extreme arrogance that Microsoft operates with. They think that just because the US allows them to get away with bad behavior that everyone else should too.
In the real world, companies have to operate under the laws of every country they operate in. If you open up a Saudi Arabian branch of your company, you can't make advertisements there with scantily-clad women, and complain when the Religious Police shut down your operations there that these ads are allowed in the US.
Sure, it is a little fine for MSFT, but what is going to happen to the money.
Can you imagine what that could do for open source developers?
BillG may not like paying a half billion euro fine, but think how pissed he would be if that money then went towards funding open source software development.
Perhaps then he might not be so keen to get fined in the future...
Get a life
I don't think the parent did justice to explaining this, so I just want to provide a quick example. Also this needs to be repeated over and over. One day I'll put something on my personal website about this, because this question is asked over and over and over.
In your normal business environment, people compete for your business. They advertise, market, and change prices in order to try to do better than their competitors.
The problem is a monopoly by definition has no competitors. Lets say you have a company which has agressively marketed RAM chips. You cut costs and make deals. This drives all the competitors out of the market and they close their doors. You now have a natural monopoly. This sometimes happens, and the government has to recognize it. If you are a natural monopoly, you fall under new rules because you have no competition.
For example, as a monopoly, say you go to some PC manufacturer and demand they have to pay twice what they pay now? As a monopoly, the PC manufacturer has no recourse and you are now bullying them. Not fair, and illegal as a monopoly. If you had competition, and you did that to someone, the PC manufacturer would laugh their ass off and switch to another RAM provider. This is one example of general "price fixing."
There are other examples, but that's the general idea. Competition means you have to fight to keep your customers. A monopoly means you can bully your customers in a way that's not fair to them. In general, competition is good because competition is the check against unfairness. This is why there is lots of talk about mergers and huge conglomerates who have too much control. Too much control is generally BAD, because the more control you have, the more prices you can fix. Most companies do more convoluted price fixing of sorts these days because that makes it harder to get caught.
Something else that Microsoft did is give away their IE browser for free. Netscape had a browser which eventually cost money and people had to buy. IE stepped in and leveraged their current monopoly by giving away IE. They made huge amounts of money on the OS and office, but made IE attractive by making it free. This is like owning all the oil in the world and giving away a free car when someone buys enough of your oil. The oil may be marked up astronomically, but hey, free car! This will drive the competition for cars into the gutter as their cars still require oil.
Note its also illegal in the US for companies to work together directly to fix prices.
Thus ends the lesson.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
If they could charge more for their product, then why don't they do so now?
Monopolies charge what the market will bear. This fine doesn't impact what the market will bear, so it shouldn't affect prices. Monopolies set prices at the level where any increase in price would decrease profits. They have no incentive to set it lower, and it would be stupid to set it higher (as it would decrease profits).
Think of it from the other perspective. If a company received a sudden windfall of money, would you expect them to reduce prices? No, they would take the windfall and maximize profit with current prices. Giving the windfall a negative value doesn't change anything but the level of profit. The company will still set prices and production so as to maximize profit.
Why _SHOULD_ microsoft go out of business?
It is one thing to aim for fairness, it is another thing to just be blinded by hate.
Yeah really. To think that the only punishment for any crime or even mere infringement is so... hmmm, what's the word I'm looking for... so islamic.
....Compared to the wacking Linux is dishing out to them.
Oh wait, then you'd have to pay $4 a gallon for gasoline
I live in California, You Insensitive Clod!
The only reason we have the rights we have is that people just like us died to gain those rights. -- Cheerio Boy
Regardess of who the company is, they broke the law.. so they have to pay the piper.
Something tells me that the fine was worth it to them, an 'acceptable loss' to hold on to the market.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
It is a shakedown pure and simple
1: find an unpopular foreign company with lots of money
2: take some it
pray tell how seizing this much of someone else's money when there is zero risk of retaliation takes courage?
who benefits from this? certainly not Microsoft or American and certainly not EU consumers (as no behavior changes are required). The only beneficiaries are the EUrocrats who get to line their pockets
i do not understand why slashdotters think this is 'A Good Thing'(TM)
When the field of computer science was still young, people focused on how you could make computers do useful things and how the technology could be improved upon. Nowadays it seems that the primary focus of the field of computer science has little to do with computers or science, but instead focuses on litigation, intellectual property abuse, monopoly-building and controlling the markets.
Oh Christ, no. When was the last time you were in traffic court? People whine and cry and make up shitty excuses in front of the judge enough as it is, without adding income concerns into it. Add "But I only worked twenty-six hours this last few weeks, your honor" on top of the "But I was rushing my goldfish home to the aquarium" bullshit that everyone already goes on about, and your courtroom experience can last six hours instead of the usual three!
Income-based fines would be more fair, but I hope to never see them. After the first hour sitting in court, I'll pay anything to get out of there, regardless of my income.
... and perhaps Microsoft will consider changing their business tactics.
$50b / $613m ~= 82, or 1.2% of their on-hand CASH.
So very true. I mean, linux is still value-priced, and the manufacturer's going down the toilet!
Had the EU (such as it was) approached Microsoft ten or fiteen years ago, and said: "We'll let you engage in anti-competitve practices in operating sytems, office applications, web browsers, and media players all you like for a crisp half-billion dollars, payable on delivery", do you think they would have taken the deal?
They have $50 Billion dollars in cash. 1% of one's cash reserves (never mind revenues) is simply not a punishment.
Imagine being taxed one percent of your life savings for a license to break all the laws you like. That sounds like a pretty sweet deal to me.
The problem with fines is that business already thinks in terms of money. Punishments for breaking the law are intended to deter behaviour. Fines are instead framed by the company as just the cost of doing business.
Agreed that 500-600 million is nothing for Microsoft, but what IF they took the money and used it to fund FLOSS. Assume the govts weasel 50% off the top! That leaves 250-300 million for FLOSS.
:) ]
This is where the real damage to MS could occur, if the penalty cash is dished out to the right FLOSS projects that threatens MS directly.
Proposed split based on what I think would help FLOSS and hurt MS:
50million for the Linux Kernel to get their security certifications finished for govt usage, driver improvements to the kernel, SE-Linux integration, whatever else Linus wants
50million for Apache Webserver, Tomcat, and other Apache-based projects that really eat into IIS market share
25million for OpenOffice with a focus on compatibility with MS Office.
25million for GNOME & KDE, split evenly on whatever they want, but with a preference on creating a Win2k-style desktop emulator so the riff-raff can change their screensavers like before
10million for plug-ins/features into Eclipse IDE that help emulate the best features of Visual Studio, and better integration of non-Java languages like Perl, PHP, C#/Mono, etc
10million on Bitkeeper replacement and/or Subversion to get great source code control mgmt, tied into Eclipse IDE enhancements above
10million on modeling tools for code or databases like SQL Navigator, or Rational Rose
10million for PHP on whatever they think they need
10million for Wine to get us closer to running lots of apps on non-MS Operating systems
10Million for ***BSD Flavors [Just because they have created so much with so little
10million for RMS and GNU with the promise he wont complain about everyone else's cash allotment
AND
25million for an investment fund that donates 50% of the yearly profits as grants to future promising FLOSS projects
On the Mac Quicktime's not so bad. I do wish Apple would, in the consumer version, add fullscreen and playlists, though. If the competition has it for free, they should, too. But, file associations and "taking over" of file types just isn't a problem on the Mac.
Many MS file formats have been mostly deciphered and are generally becoming easier to decipher. There has been word processors for a long time that have been able to deal with Word documents pretty well - but we still see Word around to the extent that many would call it a monopoly.
.NET and general XML-ization have certainly made MS much more open. And MS would love to have legislators believe that these are large steps towards an open, competitive environment. Regardless of how open .NET remoting or a new Word format is, this kind of change will not make that big of a difference.
I'm not saying that fully open file formats wouldn't help - just that they are not necessarily the central issue.
Having MS release their file formats (and Client-Server communication protocols) as an open standard would restore the Free Market
Not really. For example, MS could safely release all of the WMP codecs and formats and still crush the "free market" in players by distributing a free player tied to its OS - that's why WMP is still an issue on the table with the EU folk.
Closed formats are one piece in a big puzzle. There are many other possibilities for MS to abuse.
Having MS release their file formats (and Client-Server communication protocols) as an open standard would restore the Free Market.
To a certain extent, they have.
In reality, there won't be big changes in the desktop market until Linux (or someone else) steps in with a significantly better, polished product, or until some government royally tromps MS with a motion intended to bust. I don't see the US doing the busting (economically unsound), and the EU likely realizes that serious action has a good chance of sparking a trade war.
Even if MS halted all "bad behavior", their monopoly would continue for some time. As such, we'll have to wait for the slow progress of open software OS's to bash things back open.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
Microsoft: EUR 497 million EU fine too big
IDG News Service 3/22/04
Paul Meller, IDG News Service, Brussels Bureau
Microsoft Corp. will be fined 497 million (US$610 million) by the European Commission on Wednesday for abusing its monopoly in computer operating systems, a person close to the company said Monday.
Europeans agree on Microsoft fine Nebraska court resuscitates MS lawsuit EU Microsoft ruling could set precedent
The fine, which was set late last week after settlement talks with Microsoft broke down, was backed by national competition regulators from the 15 Union member states Monday.
Microsoft said the fine is too big. "In view of the absence of a clear legal standard under EU law, a fine of this size isn't warranted," said Tom Brookes, the company's spokesman in Brussels.
On Tuesday, the fine is to be discussed by senior aides to all 20 commissioners before being brought up at the EC's final meeting on the case Wednesday morning.
Microsoft would then be officially informed of the fine and sent a summary of the ruling by fax, shortly before Mario Monti, competition commissioner, holds a press conference to announce the decision.
People close to Microsoft were speculating over the weekend that the commission would not issue any fine at all.
"In previous antitrust cases, the commission has waived a fine in cases where the company involved didn't know it was breaking European antitrust law," the person said, adding "Microsoft could argue that it didn't know until now that its behavior broke the rules."
"We have already told Microsoft many times that a negative ruling will incur a fine," said Amelia Torres, Monti's spokeswoman. "A small company could claim it didn't know the rules but not one the size of Microsoft."
The Commission is expected to rule on Wednesday that Microsoft abused the monopoly position of its Windows operating system twice. By withholding vital information about Windows from makers of software for servers, the firm gained an unfair advantage over them in the market for server software; it also competed unfairly by bundling its Media Player software into Windows, the ruling is expected to find.
The commission is expected to announce remedies to restore competition in these markets, requiring Microsoft to sell two versions of Windows to PC makers in Europe, one of them with Media Player stripped out.
It would also have to share more secret Windows code to allow rival server software makers to compete with Microsoft server software more fairly, according to people close to the case. Computer servers drive networks of PCs.
Some analysts said these remedies are more important than the fine in terms of making an impact on Microsoft, because the company has over $50 billion in cash reserves and has already set some of that aside for covering legal costs.
After negotiations toward a settlement of the charges collapsed last week, Microsoft's chief counsel, Brad Smith, said the company would appeal any ruling at the European Court of First Instance.
Paul Meller is Brussels correspondent for the IDG News Service.
People have to see that MS cash is it's life. They make outrageous expendatures trying to wipe out any competition. Wipe out the cash and you can curb much of MS influance!!!
The real problem is that a monopolist under produces its product. As it does not have to keep prices low in the face of competition, the monopolist prices its products at the level where increasing the product would decrease sales so much that it would actually *lower* profits. Decreasing prices would also lower profits, even though it results in increased sales.
For example, assume that the monopoly good has an ideal price of $10. At $10, it sells a million units for total sales of $10 million. If you increase the price by 10% to $11, sales will fall by 10% to 900,000 units (note: the exact numbers are dependent on the good being sold; sales could just as well fall 15% or 70% on a 10% price increase; 10% is just an example) for total sales of $9.9 million. If you cut prices by 10% to $9, sales increase by 10% to 1.1 million for total sales of $9.9 million (the duplication is accidental and would probably not occur in a real example).
Now apply a $5 million fine. This changes the revenue numbers to $5 million, $4.9 million, and $4.9 million. It still makes the best sense to price the product at $10 a piece, even though the profit is lower (this is why Microsoft will not be able to pass on the fine to its customers: monopoly prices are established based on the demand, not the supply costs).
On the other hand, if you have a competitive market and everyone else is pricing the product at $9 and you price (the identical product) at $10, then no one will buy your product. Instead they will go to your $9 competitors. In that market, you will have to price at $9 to have *any* sales. Now, the total sales (between you and your competitors) will be 1.1 million units, 10% more than the monopolist produced (and a hundred thousand $ cheaper total for the 1.1 million than the 1 million).
Cartel is their middle name.
$600 million? Bill Gates could find that in his couch...
"Instant gratification takes too long." - Carrie Fisher
So how much did MS make by violating the law? More then 500 million? Then they ain't gonna stop.
Yes, this is exactly the problem. Where I live, there is a suburb that has repeatedly dumped raw sewage into the river that runs through the city rather than send it to a waste processing facility because the EPA fine is less than the cost of the treatment. There is no incentive for the city to stop doing this as long as it costs less.
The same analogy applies to Microsoft. If they make more by squeezing out the competition unfairly than they lose in fines, it's still a net gain for them overall and the next time around, there's fewer players to have to squeeze out. It's a win-win for them and a lose for everyone else (except the custodians of the fine money, it seems).
Rule #1 -- Politics always trumps technology.
This is hilarious! Sounds completely tongue in cheek to me. Am I missing something? Everyone else here seems to be taking it seriously.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
Nope--there was nothing funny at all about the price-fixing in vitamins led by Hoffman-LaRoche. I know a manager at a local plant of Hoffman-LaRoche, and used to work (in a different industry) with a man who at one point was HLR's general manager of animal vitamins. So I've heard about the court case (which went on for years, and included anti-trust action in the EU and in the United States, and possibly elsewhere).
Is price-fixing in vitamins a big deal?
First, we're not talking about somebody trying to corner the market in One-A-Day tablets. We're talking about a small group of chemical companies colluding to fix the prices of (and markets for) vitamins that are included in food products. That's things like the Vitamin D in your milk. And--more significantly in terms of market size--it is the vitamin supplements included in animal feeds.
A brief discussion of animal feed
I am a geek--but I am a geek who is heavily involved in 4-H (non-U.S. readers: 4-H is a program for American youth [mostly farm youth] funded by the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture.) People who are feeding animals frequently want to feed a "complete" feed--a feed that includes all of the nutrients an animal requires. Example: dog food. You don't want Bowser running down kids in the neighborhood to supplement the meager protein requirement you feed him: you want him to get all the nutrition he requires from his bowl. In the same way, most cat owners don't want little Fiona sneaking out to hunt down the local rodent population just because there isn't enough "meat, and meat byproducts" in her Fancy Feast. (In case you're curious, a "meat byproduct" is what goes crunch when little Fiona does manage to eat one of the local rodents.)
Are you with me so far? If you live in the urban jungle you may not think of animal feeds beyond dogs and cats. And while that business is not small, there is also a huge business in other animal feeds. Think of cows, horses, chickens, and turkeys. In a nutshell, "chicken feed isn't chicken feed." Animal feeds are a multi-billion dollar business--and a major cost component for a feed manufacturer is the cost of the vitamin supplements included in the feed.
So the manufacturers get together...
It has been illegal for many years, in the United States, for manufacturers to compare prices or sales practices for common customers. But price and/or market collusion was not illegal in many other countries--and a number of multinational companies got a bit clever. If it wasn't illegal to collude on pricing in Switzerland (and in the 1980s it was not) you simply met with your counterparts in Switzerland, agreed on your prices and markets, and shook hands. According to a friend who was involved in some of these meetings (in Switzerland) everybody benefited: the people involved made their sales quotas, kept their profits up, and were spared the headaches of having to endure real competition. Sure--the customers (and ultimately the consumer) got rooked, but that was a "political issue." My friend (a U.K. citizen) assured me that Americans were far too zealous about such things. All of that ended when the U.S. government found out about it--Hoffman LaRoche, a Swiss company, settled for $500 million; BASF ("we don't make the products you buy, we just make them cost more") agreed to a fine of $250 million; other companies involved paid lesser amounts.
Want to know more?
One of the really cool things about the Web in general, and SlashDot in particular, is the ability to click on a link and go off on a tangent--learning something you'd never even thought of before. This link connects to a law firm involved in the matter.
In which way, language, pictoral expresion, monogram, do we need to explain to people like you, obvisouly with weak powers of logical reasoning, that once a company achieves monopolic position in a market the rules that apply to it are different?
It does not matter if the people are willing (as many obviosuly are) to give anything to this company in order to be infected by the latest worm or virus, and pay heftly for the benefit (junkies). No, what matter are this company practices, which are not only immoral but have been found to be illegal.
What to they need to do in order for people like you stop defending them?
Despair, frankly, despair....
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I'm pretty sure that would be a violation of international law. I don't believe there's anything in international law that allows governments to seize copyrights as remediation in lieu of fines. I'm also pretty sure that MS made it so that no one who participates in Shared Source can do anything worth a damn for similar reasons as you outline.
The strange thing is the eerie silence in the european media about this kind of stuff. Or is it just me? I love the americans for their angry websites and wild discussions when stuff like this happens. I have to read about this and on an americam website. Should i as a dutchmen check german websites or learn french or swedish to hear about this ?
... you normaly needs a surface where to spin it, or at least a credible frame of reference.
Otherwise you just look silly.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
True enough but this is a traffic ticket to Bill Gates. Not a traffic ticket to you and me. It always struck me as fundamentally unfair that traffic tickets are fixed and not based on income. Simply put 100 dollars is not the same to everyone.
The amount of someone's income doesn't change how much everything else costs. If I make a lot of money but still live in a $500/month apartment, and I get a $500 ticket, you've still taken my rent money.
Basically you're saying it's "worse" for a rich person to break the law than a middle-class person, because you're assigning higher value of punishment to someone who makes more money. That's "fundamentally unfair." I could have sworn being fair meant being equal to everyone...
I hope this cramps ol' Billy Boy's day a little. M$ deserves to be kicked with steel-toed boots every once in a while (and lot more often too) because the U.S. Justice Department (under the Bush Administration) sided with big business - BASTARDS!
What the EU should do then is poor that money into a really focused Linux development effort to infect the Borg and bring freedom, peace, and prosperity to the world.
This case has nothing to do with protecting the interests of consumers. It is only a case of competitors such as Real whining because they can't offer anything better than Windows Media Player that's compelling enough for a consumer to download, even for free, so they want Windows to ship without a media player, so the consumer is hindered, and must go download it from somewhere. At best they hope they can get some OEMs to ship Windows with their player instead.
1. Fine Microsoft $500 million.
2. Give $500 million to Open Source development foundations.
3. Who's laughing now, Billy Boy?
Microsoft is not being fined for violating anybody's individual rights. The company never put a gun to anybody's head and forced them to buy Microsoft products. Microsoft is being fined for being a good business: too good I guess. It's a sad day when achievement is punished and failure is rewarded. That is exactly what this fine and all of antitrust law amounts to.
It always struck me as fundamentally unfair that traffic tickets are fixed and not based on income.
Around these parts they are.
Here you go, now that is what I call a traffic ticket.
Things like this are what make me hate Slashdot sometimes. Instead of focusing on the actual issues, it turns into an anti-MS circle-jerk and all reason gets thrown out the window.
OMG MAKE THE GOVERNMENT SHUT THEM DOWN AND MAKE THEM OPEN SOURCE ALL THEIR CODE AND GIVE PRODUCTS AWAY AND NOT BUNDLE ANYTHING AND TAKE ALL THEIR MONEY THAT WILL SHOW THEM!!!111
Christ, you people are fucking morons sometimes.
All we need is PowerPoint and it's ready for a no-bid sole-source government contract
Last time I saw a story on this, it was mentioned that the EU can fine up to 10% of MS's worldwide revenue. I wouldn't be surprised if that's significantly less than their profit margin, so even a settlement to the fullest extent of EU law wouldn't dissuade them, unless they were barred completely from the EU member states (and that would wind up screwing the users a lot more than it would screw Redmond).
Y'know, you blow up one sun and suddenly everyone expects you to walk on water.
I rechon the EU should declare a continent-wide "Microsoft monopoly party". Free beer and food, paid for by MS corp and everybody's invited!
The big problem is that the EU will not require that the critical interfaces (APIs and data formats) be made publicly available and royalty-free. The EU might require some royalty-encumbered licensing, but that's worthless. There are many products that can actually partly compete with Microsoft in the marketplace (in spite of Microsoft's illegal restraints of trade) -- but most of them are open source software (OSS). OSS will not receive any kind of useful levelling of the playing field from this ruling, because royalty-encumbered licenses are usually written in a way that prevents OSS implementation. Even the proprietary companies can't compete; royalties always discriminate against those who have to pay them.
The EU fine isn't a useful deterrent. Microsoft can delay that for a long time, and then just treat the fine as a cost of doing business. The EU is large enough that they can pay the fine, and make more money than the fine, indefinitely.
A larger fine wouldn't be a good idea either; the goal shouldn't be to put Microsoft out of business (okay, some people think it should be, but I don't agree). I think the goal should be to restore competition in the marketplace. And this fine won't do it, because it doesn't really get at the root of the problem: the problem is both secret interfaces and control over distribution. This EU ruling only deals with control over distribution, so the weed will just grow back.
they will take 10-20% of that money and stick it in a trust that hires developers to produce Free Software full time!
Oppression of the linear!!!! Or, err, flat?
My point is, why is that the flat amount is the egalitarian option? Why can't some other relation be equal? Would you say that everyone should pay a flat amount of taxes? Maybe you would say everyone should pay a flat rate of taxes, but not amount. And this is what is being said here: a flat rate may be more fair.
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.
I can see that the Anti MS sentiment is strong enough for everyone to overlook this, but doesn't it seem a bit unfortunate for half a billion US dollars to fly off to fill some European government treasury? I mean if this was a company we liked it might seem a bit like the EU was overstepping their bounds. Imagine if they fined Google half a billion dollars for search engine antitrust. (a bit ridiculous, but hey)
e _deficit/
We have pretty significant trade deficits already.
from http://money.cnn.com/2003/02/20/news/economy/trad
"Exports to Western Europe slipped to the lowest level since 1997"
"On an individual country basis, the U.S. trade deficit with Germany set a record in December at $4.1 billion, fueled by a record $6.3 billion in imports"
Standing Ovation! :)
Well, the answer to that is simple. The SEC wouldn't let him.
- 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!
What happens if none of Microsoft's appeals work, and they have to pay the fine? Will things improve for anyone? Microsoft can simply think of this as part of the cost of doing business in Europe and pass the extra cost onto YOU. Worse, Microsoft could be encouraged to continue their predatory practices because, heck, they've already paid for their license to do so.
What should REALLY happen to Microsoft:
1: The company should be split into two, one that sells Windows, and one that sells all of the Applications and addons like Office, IE, Windows Media, MicroTunes, etc. These companies should have no financial relationship with each other except:
2: The OS company should be forced to lower their prices by however much the App company charges for the unbundled pieces. For example, if the App company charges $19.95 for Windows Media, Windows itself should get cheaper by that amount. Think what that would mean for IE! If the App company wants anyone to buy their browser over free options like Mozilla, it really needs to be better than Mozilla. Wow. Competition based on merit....
3: The App company should have to freely publish their file formats. When everyone who has a word processor or spreadsheet application can easily read and write the Office formats, users won't be forced to use Microsoft products if they don't want to. If the products REALLY ARE better, people will use them, but not because they have to.
None of these thing should be objectionable to Microsoft if they actually have the best products and can legitimately compete on the basis of merit.
I know, it'll never happen.
-John
Fight Frist Psoting!
Browse Slashdot with 'Newest First'!
My point is, why is that the flat amount is the egalitarian option? Why can't some other relation be equal? Would you say that everyone should pay a flat amount of taxes? Maybe you would say everyone should pay a flat rate of taxes, but not amount. And this is what is being said here: a flat rate may be more fair.
If you really want true fairness, you have to ditch the concept of "speeding" tickets entirely, and instead, ticket bad drivers. That means people who speed, but who are safe drivers don't get tickets. People who observe the limit, but weave all over the road in their SUV while babbling into their cellphone, or who do 40mph in rush-hour, forcing everyone behind them to percolate to a slow boil.
Coming soon - pyrogyra
And it would have to be a single slide. Just one picture of "Chewbacca", and it's all said and done...
Shift happens. Fire it up.
yeah right. Once the EU gets the cash, it will go into their bank account and be used up in the normal stuff that they spend money on.
:)
It would be way cool if that happened though
Can your karma go above being Excellent?
they should introduce a final sanction for multinationals who try this
loss of copyright protection within the eu
now that would *HURT* microsoft badly
Microsoft has 50 billion in cash!
Do you hear, EU? They got 50 billion!
This fine is petty cash for them.
Haha, can't you come up with a real man number?
"Security concerns diverted the focus of our customers, our sales force, and our channel away from closing new deals," Connors said.
Of course, it's even more of a liability for the poor id10ts who run or support their crap.
*** Sigs are a stupid waste of bandwidth.
"They have deep pockets and nobody much likes them, lets shake them down for a few million."
If Europeans think Microsoft is unfair with their products, there is an easier solution that levying fines upon the company: stop buying the product. If everyone in Europe did just that then things would be much better for them. On the other hand, if the Nation of Europe's government wins out with this fine then what Bill ought do is be be like John Galt and close down every European operation plus terminate all Microsoft exports to Europe. Granted, Microsoft would loose a ton of money, but it would probably hurt Europe Microsoft than Microsoft. On the other hand, if Microsoft is as unfair as the Europeans seem to think that they are then they should be able to fare just fine without Microsoft. Being one who uses Apple and Linux exclusively, I personally believe either of these two scenerios would be better than levying fines since it takes the moral high ground of free wil and, more importantly, also lets the Europeans get their hands on the cool (ie non-Microsoft) toys!
"The State is that great fiction by which everyone lives at the expense of everyone else." -Frederic Bastiat.
People get those too.
Maybe they're getting their new lawyers from the same place the SCO Group is.
Microsoft raises the price of Windows by 10 dollars and Office by 20 dollars in EU to offset the losses incurred.
WTF? Is this business or a grade school playground? I enjoy blasting Microsoft as much as anyone, but who the hell thinks they need to share anything about their products other than the price with anyone? Complete morons, IMHO.
Well, chump change adds up.
Add this money to the payouts that have come before it, and the ones that will come in the future.
If I make 1000 dollars a month and I am fined 500 then that is half my income gone. If I make a 10000 a month and you fine me 500 then am I suffering the same?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Seems like the events described in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged are coming into fruition.
I'm reminded of that Simpsons ep where Burns is caught dumping nuclear waste in a city park and fined some huge sum. He says something like, "As long as I have my checkbook out, I'll take that statue of Justice too."
...I suppose "death by ooga booga" just wasn't going to happen.
o ga +joke&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
http://www.google.com/search?q=death+by+ooga+bo
All we're going to see is that Windows XP Service Pack 2--due this summer--will not have Windows Media Player 9.x versions installed on the default install. Of course, that could be fixed by putting the installation CD-ROM disc in and typing in a few commands. :-)
Mind you, for streaming audio/video I like Windows Media Player better than RealOne or the upcoming RealPlayer 10, mostly because it streams more smoothly that Real's products on dial-up connections.
So what is the open source value of mplayer?
I just had to comment on your sig ... the first
computers I worked on (as a 3'rd year physics
student in 1977) was a Data General minicomputer
and a 8502-based SBC. Thanks for the memories!
yeah right. Once the EU gets the cash, it will go into their bank account and be used up in the normal stuff that they spend money on.
haha yeah, French farmer and fisherman subsidies I bet!
MPC isn't the old Windows version, it just looks like it.
It supports DivX, Xvid and DVD VOBs natively, as well as being able to use any codec installed.
Great piece of free software. Open source too.
No actually it's pretty close to a traffic ticket for us mortals. If I compare a very stiff traffic ticket around here as a fraction of my annual income, is about the same as a US$600M fine on their US$32,000M annual income (2%).
Now I admit, I'm not going to declare bankruptcy over a single speeding ticket, but it is going to make me slow down, and I'll be a bit more careful next time. (I'll especially be careful around the damn corner they got me on/trying to bundle in the EU.)
E.
The lawyer isn't stupid, just a liar. Just like the top execs at MS.
The best way to support the US war effort is to continue buying American products.
I hate to break it to you, but the only reason mplayer is a viable alternative to things like Media Player, Real One and Quicktime is because it uses the Win32 DLLs in a very dubious (license-wise) manner. The Win32 DLLs written by the "crappy capitalistic companies" like Microsoft, Real and Apple (all of which have released open source software, by the way).
No, it isn't all using win32 dlls. IIRC, here's the breakdown:
* AVI and ASF (the wrapper formats) have been reverse-engineered and reimplemented natively.
* RTSP has been implemented natively.
* RealMedia's codecs are implemented by using a Linux-native shared library that Real exposes *specifically* to allow third-party software to do decoding. Seeking in RealMedia content is not supported.
* divx (not technically from MS, though the original codebase originated from MS code) is implemented natively.
* Quicktime (the wrapper format) is implemented natively for older versions, but newer versions require use of Win32 DLLs.
* Sorenson v1 and v2 are reverse-engineered and implemented natively.
* Sorenson v3, I believe, requires use of a Win32 DLL.
* Indeo requires use of Win32 dlls.
The Win32 DLLs written by the "crappy capitalistic companies" like Microsoft, Real and Apple (all of which have released open source software, by the way).
The problem has nothing to do with the company releasing open source software. The problem is that, while it's difficult-but-doable to make your own video codec, it's extremely hard to produce an exactly compatible player without format information. This has nothing to do with Apple, Real, or Microsoft having better designers -- it has to do with none of them having to reimplement someone *else*'s codec without technical information.
May we never see th
While the traffic ticket argument may have merits, doesn't earning more income entitle people to some benefits that others don't have? By this sentiment, one could say well food should represent x% of your budget, so if you make more money food should be the same burden and cost more which is clearly ridiculous sounding. And should a traffic ticket actually be a life-changing event by shattering a significant portion of your income?
And sadly, fines don't make something unprofitable. As anyone who's seen fight club 8000 times knows, if the cost of repairing a product defect is more than the expected settlements for letting the damage happen and people die, they don't do it. I fully agree that some fines (in this case punitive damage in clearly negligent lawsuits) should be massive. But should this be the case always? Such as fines for anti-competitive behavior which is not life-threatening. And I personally think 1% is a siginificant enough chunk to have an impact on a company. Microsoft should not be punished worse than any other company just because it's a good business and has tons of cash (good as in profitable, not good as in the opposite of evil).
Wow you really don't know??, why not suggest M$ give up the US market while you're at it, man do you have any idea just how big (people/ecconomy wise) the EU is?? hmm I guess you don't.
around 500 million people after june when we get a few more member states.
Thats (lets be conservative here), maybe 50 millions copies of a MS operating system.
Thats a lot of money. And thats excluding MS's REAL market, large corporations like Airbus or Mercedes.
in the 21st century think that having an empire could be something to derive any pride from.
I have to disagree with you because MS has all most all of the desktop market. How about what MS has done too:
DR-DOS - Would not run under 95 because of a TSR that look for DR-DOS
Stacker - Added to DOS 6.0 to kill them
Netscape - IE for FREE with OS
OS/2 - OS2 and Win 3.1 was going to come out at the same time. MS did not wait.
Lotus 123 - The OS is not done until Lotus does not run.
Word Perfect - Lets give Word with the OS to lock people in.
Java - Lets change the stander so MS JAVA would not run on any other platform.
Is Real Audio or Google next?
If there was five large companies making an OS systems, I would now have a problem with them adding new stuff. But when one company has 90% of the market and killing anyone else that might have a good idea. I have a real problem with them.
If you look at the pricing of MS it is starting to come down because of Linux. I have seen MS paid to fix problems with their systems because the company was going to switch to Linux for that service. There servers are going over slower to Linux now. It would have been faster if MS was not helping.
I think the writing is on the wall we just need to wait.
Speeding ticket of over 100,000 euros was given for a boss of Nokia, Anssi Vanjoki. Another Nokia boss got a ticket for 30,000 euros..
Anyway, glad to see you think that 65k deaths were worth it just because you killed more of the damn foreigners.
defend thier freedom. I love how that means "They broke the law and should be fined".
A bit like "Liberating" means "Invading"
or
"Supporting democracy" means "Overthrowing the elected president of the country"
or my favorite
"The American dream" is "A police state where its own citizens are treated as criminals who happly get to watch all thier jobs leave thier country, thier money become more worthless and a chimp piss away whats left on totally screwing up the world so his rich friends get thier money".
Typical Americans. Get your own irrational xenophobias instead of copying the motherland. Us Britons called bagsy on hating the French. Find someone else to call names will you. Grief.
100M was the estimate and they almost got fined 500M?
wow the dollar sure has dropped...
Thanks there "W".
(Yes there is a closing tag there without and opening tag for sarcasm because I don't know when it ever starts, it just ends like that)
he doesn't realised who should of typed CAR into google instead.
that MS should not put WMP in the OS?
Cool.
That a man like John Kerry would get elected to the highest office in the land because of a campaign of hate against Bush.
I'm not talking about ideology, I'm talking about hate. The folks on the Left don't just have pholsphical differences with Bush, they HATE him! That really concerns me even more than the fact that so far no Dem has been able to really show me that Kerry the better CANDIDATE when compared to someone like Ralph Nader.
You've all got to have a better reason then 'ABB' or 'I hate Bush'.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
I know most of us on Slashdot are anti-MS, but think about this for a moment. Given the current political climate, isn't it at least possible that the EU has decided to prosecute MS to this extent out of anger at US policy?
Look, we all know MS has been guilty in the past, and to some extent surely still is (can you say... SCO?) of preventing competition, however if there's a chance that this action is motivated by anti-US sentiment, THAT should be considered as well.
It might be MS today, but who will it be tomorrow? I realize that France and Germany are angry that their exclusive banking 'oil for food' deals in Iraq are over, but will they now take it out on other US-based organizations out of spite? Can we expect action from the US gov't on this issue?
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
497 million euros. that sure will buy a lot of niggers.
beeing fined doesen't mean paying... this process will go on for years before they pay one single euro.
Hate is a legitimate feeling.
Thankfully we have politics to channel those emotions.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Can you believe its actaully tobacco farmers that get most of the subsubsidies!
Sauron, President & CEO of Mordor, was accused of running a sinister vitamin cartel in Middle Earth.
District Attorney Gandalf implied the defendant is facing severe fees in the multi-class action suit by humans, elves, dwarves, ents, and hobbits, facing extinction due to the lack of competitively priced vitamins in their foodstuff. "As the ringleader, Sauron may be fined as much as hundreds of millions of gold pieces," warned Gandalf. Sauron was unavailable for comment.
(Sorry... Couldn't help the association.)
Well, such modern systems exist, and they exist in good old Europe!
in February, a millionaire in Finland named Jussi Salonoja was fined EUR170,000 (About USD 220,000) for speeding, thus beating the previous record of EUR80,000 from 2000.
A BBC article
It's also wrong to bomb civilians just to keep your military body bag count down.
E500M is totally wrong syntax! Units are written _after_ the amount, and that is almost universal except for the fucked up US syntax. It is 500ME, or 500M euros.
Like with iraq; that worked out real great, didn't it? /end sarcasm(?)/
It's always so cool to see how the USA condemns countries with WMD, after they delivered the means to these countries to develop them in the first place.
Or how they invade and sanction countries that have WMD - while having WMD themselves, ofcourse, exept Isreal, Pakistan and India. But only when it suits them, ofcourse, because let's not forget they DID imose sanctions on the latter two, untill they did the bidding of Bush and his cronies.
Or the USA much uplifting struggle for freedom and democracy in the world, while supporting ruthless dictators and human-rights-abusing monarchies...as long as it is to the economic and political benefit of the USA, of course.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
shouldn't we take a bit less then solace that the same USA delivered those very WMD that all those 'worst butchers' used and were actively supported by the USA? They were fully aware what he was doing with the civilian population since the 80'ies: they just didn't give a damn, because he was their 'friend' at the time, and fighting big bad foe Iran. How much solace can there be, knowing that those butchers were actively supported, and in some cases helped to power, thanks to the USA?
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
Like in Russia?
Useless sanctions that starve 500000 civilians is what you get?
Hold that thought.
And we claim we are the 'civilized world'?
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
"If cheap == "always victorious" then yes I guess our soldiers are cheap."
I see. So Vietnam was a victory, then?
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
you do anal? wow
Since when is it acceptable to write E in stead of ?
Sindri Traustason.
True enough but this is a traffic ticket to Bill Gates. Not a traffic ticket to you and me. It always struck me as fundamentally unfair that traffic tickets are fixed and not based on income. Simply put 100 dollars is not the same to everyone. 500 million is petty cash to MS.
In Finland the fines are proportional to what you earn. A top exec of Nokia was caught speeding and was fined 116,000 euros for driving his motorbike at 75kph (46mph) in a 50kph (31mph) area.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
Ha Ha
-- Karma Karma Karma Karma, Karma Chameleon - Boy George
The problem I have with this line of reasoning is, that these 'madmen' and ruthless dicators were often actively supported, and sometimes even helped in power by the same USA that is full of 'bringing democratic values the world' and other lame excuses to conceil their own ongoing immorality in their dealings with the world.
The blood of those people is not entirely on the hands of Sadam, but also on that of the USA.
For sure, the USA is not the only country that has commited these kinds of things, though they are on the top row, certainly considering the hypocrisy displayed. Germany has had it's share, as does the Netherlands and a lot of other european countries. But the difference is, we *learn* about these atrocities and wrongdoings at home/shool, and we learn that they were immoral and should not be repeated.
In contrast, however, most americans react totally the opposite when confronted with the shamefull actions of their country: they not only deny it vehemently, they try to minimize the immorality and the consequences, and even try to defend it. Just as you are doing.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
shiat. I tried to put Nelson tags around this but it didn't work.
-- Karma Karma Karma Karma, Karma Chameleon - Boy George
Yes, but imagine if BillyG lived in Finland....
I thought the Euro's loved their taxes? What are they doing trying to skirt the law here?
Oh, like all socialists they like to take other people's money (not their own) and give it to causes that they deem more important than the true owner of the money.
Nothing to see here, standard socialism.
Norris/Palin 2012
Fact: We deserve leaders who can kick your ass and field dress your carcass.
That's right, it's US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with a "madman of the highest order".
You might also want to have a look at: this. My favourite part is the bit about "Bilateral relations were sharply set back by our March 5 condemnation of Iraq for CW use". One guess what CW stands for.
Reagan and Rumsfeld both knew what Saddam Hussein was up to in 1984, and did nothing. In fact, they offered plenty of financial and intelligence support to him.
Because they have oil. No, not like that, it's because they have oil that makes them a LOT of money. Quickly. Making them able to afford the high cost of weapons programs and black market merchandise. Unlike the North Koreans who have no money, or the Chechnyans, etc.
Saddam was actively pursuing a nuclear warhead (several were found, btw), that it is widely believed in intelligence circles he intended to use on Israel. Saddam never threatened the U.S. directly, but he was pretty good at antagonizing our allies in the Mid-East. Which is why this little incursion had the potential to blow up in our face (AKA war with the ENTIRE Middle East from Egypt to India). Special attention here - Bush did a pretty good job if for no other reason that it didn't blow up in our face. You can hate his agenda, his methods, whatever else, but he handled this situation ... brilliantly. Look, I hate to admit it too, but he did. For as bad an idea as I think this was, he HANDLED it extremely well.
Bush may be an ass-hat, but the only one questioning whether or not what happened in Iraq is a good thing in the long run are people like you who hate him. Get past your petty personal politics and do a little more homework before you ask easy questions. And if you want to deliver democracy to everybody and free everybody [blah blah blah], go join the Army. I can just about promise that you'll have every chance in the next 10 years to risk your life for very little money freeing somebody. Not sure who yet, but then if we deployed every man, woman and child in America we wouldn't be able to save 1/4th the world. And we'd probably all die long before we won freedom for anybody... even say, Canada [again, they beat the crap out of us all 5 times we tried to invade]. But you'll get your chance, guaranteed.
Btw, Clinton doesn't have the glowing intelligence record you seem to think he has, we lost quite a few lives during his run (Remember Mogadishu? The Embassy bombings (ours and the Chinese)? Kansas?), so you probably want to tone that down too.
In short K Head, we ran over Iraq with a tank because the guy running the place wanted to take his kill-em-all attitude global - and he had the money to do it. If we could've taken his money (and we tried) that would've been good enough, but it wasn't working.
"international law" is practically non-existant. On the other hand I can tell you that under US law copyrights are definitely revokable when a court rules that that copyright has been abused. The material in question then falls back to the public domain.
International copyright treaties are not so insignificant. Also, there is a difference between a judge ruling a copyright invalid and approving its seizure.
I've yet to see anything that suggests this is even rempotely possible, and there is good reason to assume it's not.
Leveraging copyright powers as part of illegal anti-trust violations could certainly qualify as abuse of copyright, and refusing to pay lawfully ordered court damages could certainly escalate the damages to to full blown revokation.
That may be common sense, but it's completely unsupported legally. This court deals with monopolistic violations. Nonpayment of the fine would land MS in debtors' court or some analog. The two matters wouldn't even be overseen by the same judge, and a civil judge in a debt matter certainly wouldn't have the power to revoke a copyright.
And again, international copyright is governed by treaty anyway, which does not to my knowledge make such provisions for nonpayment of fines in a completely unrelated matter.
< nelson > Ha Ha! < /nelson >
Yielding: <nelson>Ha Ha!</nelson>I am NaN
if Saddam hadn't messed around with the UN inspectors so much. And I dont mean the latest round of inspectors, I mean the inspectors we'de been sending for the past 10 years. If he hadn't acted like he was hiding something for so long, we wouldn't have suspected him of HAVING anything. Dont any of you remember the YEARS when we kept sending people, and they conveniently had all thier notes/film/documents confiscated OVER and OVER and OVER again. Equipment destroyed, etc etc etc. I mean come on, even if we didn't find any of the weapons, thats probably because he had 10 years to find suitable hiding places for them.
Indeed. Food is a necessity of life. Speeding is not. Similarly, Microsoft can still manage to stay in business with fairer business practises. A fine is punitive, not assessed for something that is necessary, so it should thus be steep enough to at least make the perpetrator think.
Of course, some offences have steeper penalties than others, but it's for the EU to determine what sort of offence Microsoft has committed. If they think it warrants a traffic-ticket penalty, so mote it be. People in the EU can no doubt communicate with their representatives if they feel that's not an appropriate penalty.
Now, if Microsoft is found to be using downright illegal methods to keep a stranglehold on their corner of local economy(using one wrong to achieve another), things might need another look - because then, they are threatening people's livelihood; that of the people running their competition. If those companies are forced under by shady practises, those people suddenly find the necessities of life to be a little harder to get.
NB: YMMV. IANAL. Take the above with a grain of salt.
NUCULAR WEAPONS. You roll your troops in there and they evaporate the freakin' Missisipi with nucular warheads.
With the traffic ticket comparisons that have been mentioned, if you speed again after getting the ticket, you get another ticket, and another, and so on as long as that behavior continues. Eventually, you can lose your license and then you can start getting jail time. If MS continues the practice after getting a fine, do they get fined again? How long of a wait would there be until the next fine is applied? A one-time E500M may not be much to them, but E500M/month would have a much larger impact.
(n/t) = no text
According to the article, Microsoft is projecting making $8.6B this quarter and the top fine the EU chooses to stick them with is $3.43B. It's hard for me to believe that this rises to the level of a slap on the wrist; this is something Microsoft could literally write a check for which covers the maximum possible fine then dismiss the matter entirely; call it the cost of doing business. It seems to me that Microsoft's Gutierrez is raising his objection chiefly for show, to give the public the appearance that this fine will "get [their] attention and change [their] way of thinking and acting" (in your words) but we all know that it won't change anything about Microsoft.
I have to wonder, how badly does a corporation have to behave before the public (which ostensibly elects the lawmakers) thinks it's okay to take action against that corporation and actually work to put people in office who will pass reasonable laws? And what, exactly, would be done against that corporation if this were a more democratic decision? Could a corporation do anything to merit being liquidated entirely (a corporate death penalty)? Or disincorporated and have their top 15% wage earners become personally liable for the corporation's fines and losses to investors due to their misbehavior?
Digital Citizen
HuguesT: I was quite substantially enjoying a discussion we were having in a different thread, which you've left idle for some time now without replying. As you don't have any email address visible via this site, and a google for your nick brings up nothing promising, I'm reduced to asking here that this thread be continued, either on this site or via private mail.
Thanks! (And sorry, all others, for the noise).
Yes, but the market spoke, and it said "Windows" All of those people could have bought TRS-80's, Commodore 64's, Amigas, Atari STs, Macs or they can run Linux now. Nobody twisted anyone's arm and made them buy Windows. That's not a monopoly. A company that has a monopoly seals in the customers fate in that the customer has no other choice. Period. Like when you could only get AT&T phone service in the states. There were no other phone companies. You were screwed. With computers, it's different and ALWAYS has been. I had a Commodore 64 and an Amiga. Nobody forced me to buy a Windows box. People bought them because Windows catered to the business market and other computer makers didn't do so effectively. Look at Apple's pathetic attempt even today. What id Sun do for the consumer? Nothing. People wanted to use (in 99% of cases steal) the same software and run it at home, so they chose Windows. So, where's the monopoly? Did Bill Gates twist your arm?? I run Linux and Mac OS X and the only MS product I use is Office, and that's my choice. Telling a company what they can distribute with their own product is very dangerous and the goverment is out of line. Nazz
I'll figure out who you are don't worry. You'll get a chance to back up your words.
Tell you what, I'll make it easy for you. Name a time and place that's easy for you and I'll try to make it. And if I can't make it we'll figure out some mutually agreeable time that I can. In fact, I think most cities are doing those 'fight club' nights - what do you say we sign up for a grudge match? That should keep us both honest and you won't have to waste a single day looking me up.
Again, it's up to you pal. But for christ's sake, don't threaten to 'look me up' to give me my chance. Either face me or don't, but don't be a coward about it.
Godwin's Law prov. [Usenet] "As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one." There is a tradition in many groups that, once this occurs, that thread is over, and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever argument was in progress. Godwin's Law thus practically guarantees the existence of an upper bound on thread length in those groups. However there is also a widely- recognized codicil that any intentional triggering of Godwin's Law in order to invoke its thread-ending effects will be unsuccessful.
:p
How about KNOWING the laws you are trying to enforce, you insensitive clod!
Oh, and to the poster who made the original reference, you not only LOST the arguement by making the comparison, you are making plain for all to see what an uneducated fool you are. Any comparison is ludicrous until Bush:
1.) Commits or attempts genocide.
2.) Invades his three closest neighbors on a mission of conquest and empire building (It's not as if we're trying to KEEP or colonialize Iraq and Afghansitan [though I've been in favor of colonizing Iraq with the option to apply for statehood in 100 years since the first Gulf War]), and,
3.) Imprisons his OWN COUNTRYMEN in death/work/detention camps. Foreign combatants DO NOT count!
Please note, I did not vote for GWB, but he was a damn sight a better choice than that spineless pansy Gore. I will almost certainly vote for Bush over whoever the Democratic nominee is (John "Effing" Kerry? NO way), seeing as there doesn't seem to be an independant running this year. He's FUBAR'd some stuff up here, but it could be a lot worse (How about three times the already ridiculous tax rate, as the Dem's would have it... Why should I give away even more of my hard-earned money so some worthless slacker who hasn't worked a day in the last 15 years can continue to live on welfare eating as well [if not better] than I do, and make more babies in- between Jerry Springer and the next soap opera?), and in the long run, the Iraq invasion was the right thing to do. Maybe some Iraqi's are protesting in the streets right now, but they are mostly blowing EACH OTHER up now, not us. Besides, were it not for the U.S. soldiers there right now, those protesting would all be dead or dying in Saddam or Uday's torture chambers. We've given them freedoms such as they've never had in their entire history. Bush has done a great thing here, and anybody who says differently (One guy [a Frenchman] said to me, "They [the Iraqi people] were neither ready for, nor deserving of liberty because they are too culturally backwards and repressed to handle freedom, like most Arabs.") is a facist at heart, pure and simple.
--
All your terrorist base are belong to U.S.!
"Inveniemus Viam Aut Faciemus" 'We will find a way... Or we will make one!' --Hannibal of Carthage
Bravo! Any political campaign based on hate marks those campaigning (the 'ee's and the 'ers both) as dangerous and suspect at best. If your vote is based solely on the fact that you personally dislike someone and the person you vote for has no other reasonable or logical platform besides the fact that you and they are still angry that that worthless lump of flesh Al Gore lost the election, either give up or your voter card or go somewhere else please, and quit polluting my nations politics with your ignorance and lack of forethought. Whether you call it Communism, Socialism, or the National Democratic Party, it is still Communism.
/bin/laden
If: 1 + 2 = 3 then A + B = C then
Hillary R. Clinton + Card Carrying Socialist = COMMUNIST
Communist Russia was built on facism, hate, and the blood of innocents... And you people want to elect this woman in 2008 when so much of every Democratic campaign, movement and bill the last 3+ years has been based on hate against Bush or an attempt to make our laws and land a socialiist one? This woman's speeches sound like nails on a blackboard and much more closely resemble the impassioned speeches of Hitler's (though far less moving or articulate... Speaking fluent German, being a Jew and having listened to Hitler's speeches, I can tell you I'd rather to Hitler than Hillary [Hitllary?] any day). Seriously, at least Bush's campaigns and ideals aren't based on communism and hate. He may be an asshole who doesn't always make the choice I would have made, or done it ecxactly the way I would have, but at least he's got some guts, and is motivated by what he feels is in the best interests of the nation... Not a feeling I get from either Clinton, who seem to be motivated only by money, power, and polls. Not a good combination. Maybe Bill has a higher IQ, but he showed his lack of sense when he failed to pursue Bin Laden as vigorously as he could have. And anybody who tells me Clarke is telling the truth and wasn't paid by the Clinton's to wait until exactly now to pull this shit has their heads up their asses.
--
root@yggsdrasil> grep
"Inveniemus Viam Aut Faciemus" 'We will find a way... Or we will make one!' --Hannibal of Carthage
How many times do you people have to be told???
/. has degenerated to, I suppose. Shame on me for contributing to it, but these people need straightening out, damnit.
The US is a Republic not a Socialist Democracy, so please, get your facts straight people! Mob-rule does not work!
Rome was a republic too. Rome also fell. But yanno, during the time of the Roman Republic, the citizens of Rome were by far and large much better off than the citizens of any other land, as are the citizens of the U.S. right now... Beware those who would make our great nation a Socialist one and then subject (or subvert) it's will and the will and wants of it's people to another entity like the U.N. who just wants to steal money and resources from those who work so hard to make this country the great place it is. Billary would rather everybody get equal shares for unequal work, rather than reward those who deserve it and let those who do nothing (e.q. 60%+ of welfare recipients, IMO) and deserve support the least to rot, as it should be. Take a closer look at the LEFT and the FAR LEFT as well as it's figureheads and leaders, and you'll get a much clearer picture of Socialism and Facism than you will from the right. My biggest problem with the right-wingers is their religious agenda and anti-abortion stances, but the last thing you can do is call them facist. Pull your head out of your ass and try a dispassionate and honest observation of your own views before you start dissembling on the views of others.
Wow, this whole thread is WAY off topic... Classic example of what
"Inveniemus Viam Aut Faciemus" 'We will find a way... Or we will make one!' --Hannibal of Carthage