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New Blow for Microsoft in EU Row
twitter writes "The BBC is reporting on a stinging rebuke to Microsoft and their last defensive move in the EU anti-trust trials. Boston district court judge Mark Wolf accused Microsoft of trying to 'circumvent and undermine' European Law by requesting Novell documents. The story reminds us that last month, a federal judge in California denied subpoenas of Oracle and Sun for the same reasons, that a New York judge is currently considering a request against IBM and that Microsoft will be appealing their March 2004 conviction next week and may face millions of dollars of fines a day. New complaints were made just two months ago."
The EU justice system does not allow a defendant the ability to defend themselves against anonymous charges and secret evidence. If you are innocent, you must prove your innocence. Microsoft finds itself backed into a corner in which they are bombarded by name-less competitors and the evidence against them is kept secret from them.
If you were on trial, would you want the assumption of innocence? You would most likely want to be able to question your accuser. You would also want a chance to refute evidence. You'd at least want a chance to see what evidence was being brought against you.
Under the EU system of justice, none of those rights are accorded to the defendant. Microsoft may be the world's worst company, but the EU's courts are not giving them a fair chance. Microsoft is simply doing what it must to protect itself legally. If it gets shut down by a judge, that's unfortunate and they'll have to do without those documents, but under a sane legal system, they'd already have those documents.
Your Semitic vagina coming home to roost, mein Freund.
The EU bureaucrats (a highly unelected and unaccountable bunch) don't like strong American companies on their turf. In their eyes it's basically another form of "American hegemony". They're busy doing the same kind of thing as they're doing to Microsoft to American-based credit card companies (see, for example, this article as well as Forbes), accusing them of making too much money, even though, with the exception of Visa, their margins are all running under 8%. Google's, by way of comparison, is like 25%.
So, the EU crowd runs around rattling sabers at American companies, demanding that the companies basically lie down and give away product or service to competitors, "levelling the playing field," or suggesting that there needs to be a properly "European" (an adjective that is a very recent invention in itself) counterpart to every American business. As if having a myriad of credit card companies or document formats or software platforms would really benefit consumers.
Microsoft shouldn't be judged solely because they're trying to be competitive in their markets. (How many Linux distros could be accused of bundling too much software?) Unless you're a communist (like some prominent figures in organizations with recursive acronyms), how can one demand that source code be given to competitors?
Now I could be wrong, but last time I checked every OS comes with a Media Player.
Yeah, but unlike Windows, every other OS is not a monopoly!
Yea, I mean, Microsoft, come on, make Windows not monopoly and be done with it. I can't understand that Microsoft, insists that their OS be monopoly. What's the point!
Or how about this: who the hell decided it's a monopoly. An monopoly is when there are no competitors on the market either because there's law in place to forbid competition or because the monopolists owns all of a resource in an area and is therefore having a monopoly over it.
What exactly makes Microsoft monopolist? Nothing. Are there no other OS for computers and PC in particular. Are you not allowed to use them. Are people not allowed to produce and release OS for PC?
None of that. Just Windows has a very large market share, that has developer naturally in time. Therefore they have to scrap half of their features, including basics like a browser and a media player, while the other OS vendors don't have to.
Microsoft may be doing a lot of bullshit, but over here I call the bullshit squarely on the EU.
Until the next Hitler comes along.
He is already here. His name is George W. Bush. Sieg Heil to all american friends of him.