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EU Fines for Microsoft Approved, Off the Record
mattaw writes "The Register is carrying a report that all 25 member states of the EU have found Microsoft guilty of non-compliance, off the record. Microsoft is in line for a fine of $2.51 million per day backdated to December 15th 2004 for failing to meet the terms of the EU commission's ruling."
It doesn't really mean all that much. Microsoft will do some kind of wheeling and dealing efforts to 1) lower the fine and 2) establish an even stronger marketshare in the EU such as giving away windows/office/etc to schools, businesses, etc. Sadly, in the end it all works out for redmond.
So roughly that's a year plus 7 months is ~575 days * 2.51 million, that's ONE BILLION DOLLARS! (1,443,250,000) Who let Dr. Evil run Europe?
WikiAfterDark.com It's a sex wiki, go now!
If you think a goverment is anything more than a corporation with guns, you're fooling yourself.
As of July 5th, 2006: 567 days * 2.51 million per day = $1.423 BILLION Is there any way to avoid this fine?
From TFA: "I can assure you that we are continuing to work day and night with our 300 dedicated engineers to create documentation which is complete and accurate to satisfy the European Commission."
No wonder then! If it takes 300 engineers, several nights and days to document the protocols of an obsolete OS..... we should be surprised if Vista ships before 2010!
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
hmm, ~1.4 billion...
guess bill can only buy 2 small countrys this year,
My first reaction was "w00t, MS is being fined > 1 billion". But, then I thought about it for a bit. Does even microsoft deserve that kind of ruling? They actually have made some changes, like the windows version without windows media player. And > 1 billion hardly seems to be a fair amount to charge for not documenting your software properly, even if you are a monopoly. It just somehow feels like theres something not right about it, even if it does give me the "eat that microsoft" feelings... call me strange if you want.
An EC spokesman was unwilling to comment.
Seconds earlier that night, said EC spokesman was was overheard in an Amsterdam cafe, "Dude! Can you believe it? $1.4 Billion. Pass that shit over here, some jackass American reporter is ringing my mobile."
__ Someday, but not this morning, I'll finally learn to use the preview button.
300 engineers to document some protocols? I could believe 10, maybe 20 could get the job done in a few weeks. How on earth could 300 engineers work together on such a (excuse my ignorance/naivete) trivial job for two years? Hasn't this guy heard of The Mythical Man Month? MS aren't idiots; they've designed the process to fail. They deserve every cent of the fines.
Is that like double secret probation?
I do think some aspects of what Microsoft does will have to change, the fine is not just backdated but also continues every day until Microsoft compiles. Yes Microsoft has a lot of money but that's a lot of money to bleed every year and shareholders will not like it at all.
I do not know what will change, but it's a situation that cannot stand - not to mention that if Microsoft simply coughts up the fine indefinatley it will be raised to an amount they cannot ignore as easily.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
MS is getting off cheap. The EU can currently fine a company 10% of their GLOBAL annual turnover. So a fine of only a billion or two is just a warning.
But, really, what can you say about a company who seems to be unable to produce _usable_ technical documentation for their headline product?
To me it's a sad day for America when we have to rely on other countries to police our corporations for us. Of course, I wonder if the EU would have been as hard on Microsoft if it were based in, say, France?
If they really cared about this fine they'd refuse to pay it and watch the uproar that would ensue when it became illegal to sell Windows in the EU.
It will never happen. Even if (which I doubt as they'll at least try to kill eons with negotiations) Bill has to write the check (and keep writing them daily until the EU is satisfied) there is no way in hell that M$ will just let the EU default to linux or the various bsd's.
As for the price per day, ISTR seeing someplace that the fine was chosen to match the estimated sales per day within the EU. Can anyone deny/confirm that? If true, then I don't see it as excessive. Were I setting it, given the testimony thats been given ink that I've seen, I think I'd have chosen it to be a net loss per sale, of the price of the sale, or 2x the street price.
I'm with Linus in this: "If we change how microsoft does business, then we will have won".
As for the billions Bill has, I would wager that if he actually did business on the merits of his product, 2 things would have already happened. 1. Windows would be a hell of a lot more stable and secure than it historicly has been, and 2. He would have made even more money! Of course that would have had to happen 20 years ago in order to head linux off at the pass. I don't recall what his worth was then, but it surely would have been sufficient to survive the corporate direction change that would have required. One things for sure, M$ has enough in the bank to survive a rebirth in the business office, so I fail to see why the hint isn't being taken other than the corporate blinders are causing a total, identifiable by any optometrist, case of tunnel vision.
--
Cheers, Gene
Now roll that 1 billion dollars into OSS development to bring an open source OS and applications up to truly competitive levels with MS. Hell I'd even be satisfied if they paid EU software companies to port their application software to OSX. Just get some freaking competition in there already...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It might be "chump change", but it seriously eats the daily profits of the company all the same (As in the damn fine eats approximately 1/20th of the profits per day...)- and ultimately they're answerable to the shareholders. They could have avoided this drag on profits- which is what is going to be the only thing they're going to see.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Nope. I think you have it the wrong way round. The fact that Microsoft is an (illegally maintained) monopoly, is what *allows* them to sell an operating system for 300 - 400 instead of a more reasonable 50 - 100.
If they really cared about this fine they'd refuse to pay it and watch the uproar that would ensue when it became illegal to sell Windows in the EU.
When a company or private individual refuses to pay a fine, what happens is they have the tax authorities impound goods or money up to the amount. And if they still refuse, the impounded assets are sold off to pay the fine (with any surplus going back to the previous owner of course). In the case of MS, they have various national subsidiaries with associated corporate accounts that would easily cover a fine of even this size. Nobody is going to stop selling Windows over this.
In practice, of course, if a fine is finalized, MS (or any company) pays. Having authorities raid your offices, with pictures of grim-looking officials carrying off financial records by the boxfuls is enough of a PR disaster that refusing isn't an option - especially since non-payment shows up pretty starkly in the company credit and especially since you end up paying the money in any case so you don't even actually gain anything by the pointless gesture.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
So I don't know much about this, but according to a quick search I came up with 13 200 000 000 as a rough estimate for europe's GDP for 2002. Is 1/132th of a percent of their GDP going to make a difference in their budget spending? doubtful. But it will make a difference to Microsoft. I don't think this is a money grab at all, but that's just me.
An United States flag above an European Union article ;)
/. is carrying enough european/international topics
maybe time to add a template for overseas too? since
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
2.51 million per day backdated to december 15th
202 days
$507,020,000 USD
plus 2.51 each day til they are im compliance.
thatsa pretty big chunk o cash.
they expect to make 11.5 - 11.7 billion this year, losing 5% is pretty bad.
"Microsoft, being at the top of the OS market, will simply add the costs of the fines to the price they charge for their OS."
That's not how monopoly pricing works; that's how a perfectly competitive market works. In a perfectly competitive market, adding to the costs increases the price because the price is driven down to the cost (the supply curve). In a monopoly, adding to the costs has zero effect, because price is determined by *demand*. I.e. they sell the OS for the most that they can get already. If they could sell it for more, they already would.
With monopolies, prices are chosen because an increase in price reduces the quantity of sales such that total revenue drops. Similarly, a decrease in price reduces revenue by more than the increased quantity of sales, so that total revenue drops. This fine does not affect that calculation in any way. Therefore, for them to increase prices, they would either have to accept lower revenue or they would have had to have been underpricing their product. I.e. charging less than the market would bear.
You have got to be kidding. Microsoft is the only one _you_ see on the news probably. The EU is very strict on this sort of things. Have a look at the EU vs Alitalia or the EU vs Olympic Airlines, or the EU vs BMW and GM. The EU even goes against its own country members if they fail to comply with EU law. No matter how people want to see it, microsoft is not the innocent victim here...
[Offtopic]Congrats to Italy for Barrying Germany 'Squadra Azzurra' Style! I hope you guys lift the cup in the end![/offtopic]
Well it's a corporation. You can't jail it so you have to fine it.
... but one building has all the server farms, and the other building has all the presentation boardrooms ... so they just walk back and forth like it's a regular day at Microsoft. Perhaps they mutter under their breath about the wastefulness of the court's judgment as they go.
Ahh, but there is an alternative punishment - something we can do to corporations that we can't do to people. Cut them in half!
However this raises an immediate question: How do you ensure that the resulting two (or more) entities don't just collude and price-fix their way along as if they were still whole?
It's easy to imagine - two big campuses in Redmond, one given the MS Office suite, one given the Windows codebase - each told by judicial decree that they can no longer cooperate
This is why I wish that as part of a Windows interoperability and documentation settlement, the EU had the authority to say, "Okay, Microsoft. You know that corporate branch you have in Mountain View, where you run all the hotmail services? They're a separate company now, and THEY own MS Office. Expect a phone call from the department chief down there in about a week, asking for all the source code. I'm sure he'll want to establish a relocation package for all your Office coders, too. By the way, the new company is called Officesoft. Play nice with them."
You'd be amazed what a difference physical separation can make in terms of corporate attitude... Unfortunately, the opportunity for a remedy like this for Microsoft withered down to nothing in the first year of Bush Jr(tm)(r)(c)'s reign. Now innovation on the OS front has been STALLED, for 95% of the world, for the past FIFTEEN YEARS. >:(
The fine is backdated to Dec 15 2004.
The headlines are wrong. The fine is retroactive to December 15, 2005.
my other sig is a 500 page novel
You mean Microsoft has done no wrong and no damages in the EU, only the US? Welcome to a more global world.
True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
The really sad part is that judgements like this are the reason windows sells for $300-400 instead of 50-100
I thought they did that because the need to pay 5 billion developers for 10 years every to make a new version of windows
...at least you hope that's still the case.
To be fair, actually using Microsoft products tends to increase my hatred for the company one click at a time.
Contemplating their business practices merely inspires loathing.
i honestly see this as a money grab more than anything else
You need to clean your glasses. This is not a money grab. This is Microsoft CHOOSING to give away money.
Microsoft was convicted of breaking the law, and the fine and penaty was ZERO. NO FINE, NO PENALTY. This is like you break a storefront window, and the court orders you not to break any more windows and to clean up the broken glass all over the storefront and to replace the window you broke. The court requires you to stop breaking the law, and to remedy the damage you did. You (and Micrsoft) get the chance to away scott-free with NO PUNISHMENT for breaking the law.
But then you do something really stupid. You replace the window you broke, but you willfully act in contempt of court and refuse to sweep up the broken glass all over the sidewalk in front of the store. The court gives you a week to sweep up the broken glass, and still you refuse to comply. The court then levies a contempt of court fine of $X per day. And then for the next YEAR AND A HALF you still refuse to sweep up the broken glass. And you call it a "money grab" when you rack up over a year and a half of fines?
Microsoft was given ample tiome to comply. Microsoft CHOSE day after day to willfully act in contempt of a lawfull court order. Microsoft CHOSE to rack up a dailly fine. Microsoft basically CHOSE to give away money day after day. Microsoft could have gotten off scott-free with $ZERO fine.
they'd refuse to pay it
Are you STUPID? Do you seriously think that you can hop on a plane, set up shop doing business in some other country, that you can BREAK THE LAW in that country day after day, and that you could get away with simply refusing to pay court ordered fines?
No, you do not go into some country and dick around with the government like that. At first the courts are nice and simply ask you to pay the money you owe. If you are a moron and attempt to refuse to pay a lawful debt to the government, then the government simply orders the banks to seize and turn over the owed debt from any accounts. And the government can simply order customs to seize any imports/exports from the territory to pay the debt. And then the government can simply order the police to physically seize any physical assets and any and all buildings and land. And if you really piss off the government they can order the police to start physically arrest and imprison the individuals stupid enough to persist in disobeying the law and disobeying lawful court orders.
watch the uproar that would ensue when it became illegal to sell Windows in the EU
Oh, that one is my favorite part! LOLOL!
Let's assume that Microsoft somehow managed to empty all of the money from all EU bank accounts and had no future payments due for collection from EU companies, so that the courts could not simply order banks to hand over the money owed. And let's assume that Microsoft somehow magically owns no offices and owns no seizeable assets and property anywhere in the EU. And let's assume that all Microsoft employees manage to flee the countries and are unarrestable for noncompliance with the law. And let's assume that the courts in the US and Japan and the rest of the planet decline to honor debt collection in cooperation with the EU courts and decline to locally seize any bank accounts and assets.
Let's assume ALL of that. Let's assume that Microsoft could successfully play a game of "Nya nya nya you can't catch me!" with the EU legal system.
Then it gets REALLY fun! Because if Microsoft dissess the entire EU court system and cuts off all contact with the EU legal system, then GUESS WHAT! Then Microsoft cannot avail themselves of benefits and protections of the EU court system. The EU courts can refuse to accept any cases from Microsoft attempting to sue for enforcement of copyright or patent or trademark infringment. The EU courts can effectively null and void all of Microsoft's copyrights and patents and trademarks. All of Microsoft's software would effectively become public domain.
So rather than "illegal to sell Windows in the EU", in fact it could ultimately become perfectly legal for anyone and everyone to copy and modify and sell any and all Microsoft software at will.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
This is what happens when state-enforced monopoly (copyright) and state-enforced competition (anti-trust laws) collide.
Set your phasers on "funky"!
After seing many of the posts here on /. i don't understand this "poor Microsoft evil EU mentality".
You see, my biguest personal grip with the law in capitalist countries at the moment is how disproportionaly harsher it is on individuals that it is on companies - for example, if an individual kills someone due to negligence he/she goes to prison, while if a company kills multiple people they get a fine.
Even more relevant to this situation is the disparity when both the individual and the company do something for which they are fined: the issue here is that, proportionaly to the annual income of the individual and the company, a fine with the same value usually is a much higher burden for an individual than for a company. Worse still, for equally harming crimes, companies often get lower fines than individuals since they have beter lawyers, beter connections and the law is (thanks to many years of lobbying) skewed to be harsher on the types of crimes done by individuals than one those done by companies even when both crimes do the same amount of harm.
So back to the fine on MS and to put things in perspective:
- MS had in the year of 2005 a net (thus after taxes) income of $12254 millions, a fine of 1.400 millions is thus 11,4% of their net income.
- For an individual making $150000 bruto per month, with a 30% flat income tax (thus $105000 net income), an equivalent fine (thus 11,4% of their yearly net income) would be $11970
Thus, Microsoft's fine is equivalent to a $11970 (in one year) fine for an individual with an well above average income.
Actually, it sounds like a small thing because that's not the whole thing, and it's the least of the non-compliance problems too. MS was basically ordered there to _also_ sell a version without it, which isn't even much of a punishment when they can keep selling the version _with_ Media Player too.
The current fighting is over the other, and more important part there, namely APIs and protocols. MS has been given a list of stuff it must provide adequate documentation for, and to everyone. That's all.
Basically what the EU is saying is "wtf? A situation where only Windows workstations can talk to a Windows server is a recipe for a monopoly. Do be so kind and provide the documentation for those protocols." It's just telling MS that its products should compete with others on their merits, not on being the only thing that can interoperate with their other products. It shouldn't be years of guesswork and reverse engineering just to get a Linux or Solaris box to talk to a Windows server.
And MS so far has been playing hardball and turning it into a media battle. It started by pulling stunts like selling some libraries and docs preferentially and putting some stupid conditions on getting them. (E.g., literally, you can't use them in an OSS product. Literally.) Then it offered a bunch of undocumented and incomplete implementation code. (The EU says: sorry guys, we asked for protocol documentation. Be so kind and provide the docs.) And so on. And, again, it's been busy astroturfing and turning it into a media posing contest.
And IMHO the court has played pretty nice so far. Even the fine is "backdated" and thus so large, because, seriously that was the final date at which MS was ordered to provide those docs. At some point, after giving MS ample time and letting them delay for years, the court basically said, "No, this is final. At date X you must provide those docs or pay a fine per day." It still gave MS more timeouts even after that, and a chance to not pay those fines, but under the explicit condition that, seriously, if MS still doesn't comply than the original date still stands.
Basically, seriously, if I did half that shit in a court of law, I'd be in contempt and probably facing some quality time behind bars. I'm not anti-MS or anything, but at some point a court of law must be able to enforce compliance or it becomes just a joke. You can't allow someone to basically just refuse to obey for years.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
If you think that a corporation is anything more than a government without laws, representation or even a theoretical interest in human life and dignity, you are fooling yourself.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
A billion is bi-million which is a million squared (10^12)
A trillion is a trillion which is a million cubed (10^18)
etc.
Sometime in the 1920s American journalists started using billion for a "thousand million" and it caught on. Prior to that the term wasn't commonly used. Sometime in the 1980s the BBC gave in and started to mis-use the term as well. It causes a lot of confusion in the rest of the world (except India, which has its own plethora of names) where they do use the term milliard.
(completely offtopic) The prize money in the TV quiz show "Who wants to be a millionaire?" in Indonesia is 10 Milliard Rupiah.
In fact, I believe the vast majority of people on slashdot have no idea of what the EU is all about, and I would go so far as to say that the majority of UK citizens do not fully understand the system.
If you want to know, check out Europa
Karem
When all is said and done, nothing changes...
Yes, very insightful.
Apart from the fact that Debian would include several media players and browsers, none of which were produced by themselves and would probably be delighted to include others of sufficient quality. So the monopoly abuse question (which is what the MS issue is all about) would never arise and your example is total bollocks.
Also the fact that anyone is free to take the debian source, make a totally compatable distro and include whatever media players etc. that they like (which can't be done with windows) makes your example double extra mega total bollocks.
I wish I wasn't forced to post as AC (by slashdot's bizarre IP address blocking which seems to exclude entire ranges from logging on for no apparant reason) so I could see if you attempt to justify your amazingly ignorant opinion which always crops up at least once every time the MS/EU issue is discussed.
Relieving Microsoft of their copyrights within EU member states would only serve to worsen the addiction to Microsoft's proprietary software. The present path is best: financial incentives to comply with a demand for documentation so that other software companies can develop software to inter-operate with Microsoft's offerings on the same footing as MS has.
Were the EU to deny Microsoft copyright protection in its member states, I suspect that the Microsoft would lobby the US Government to act in WIPO and WTO (with other small countries bullied) to impose sanctions upon Europe. It's been a while since we've had some empire-wrangling (well, since the allegations that Saddam Hussein was planning to sell Iraq's oil in Euros before 2003's 'liberation') and that could interesting times indeed.
Not relevant. In. The. Slightest. Debian wouldn't be locking you in to using only that free media player and web browser, like MS are.
You have to have IE loaded on your Windows box for it to work. Media Player cannot be removed entirely from the system. MS' protocols are undocumented heaps of proprietary shit.
Hell, it took the Samba team months/years to reverse engineer the protocols Windows uses for networking. How much less time would it have taken if it had been documented? How much closer to 100% compatibility would Wine be if it had full documentation for the Windows APIs?
Goten Xiao
They don't. The problem is that the EU commission won't specify exactly what's "good enough" documentation. It's like I asked you to give me some fruit. You're looking for a kumquat. I give you an orange, and you say "no, that's not good enough". I give you a lime, and you say "no, that won't do either". I ask you what kind of fruit you really want, and you say "no, you just have to give me the fruit". Actually it's more like this EU: we need you to reveal your kumquats. MS: How about we give you something better (reveals an apple) EU: No that is not good enough you need to show your kumquats. MS: OK we will give you something better (reveals loads of apples) EU: those are not what we want or need, why don't you give us the kumquats we asked for? MS (in a press conference): We don't know what the EU is asking for so we think a fine is unfair. MS fanboy on Slashdot: how is it fair that Microsoft are fined when they don't know what the EU wants? (Uses an analogy that they think proves there point despite the majority of slashdotters showing they (unlike Microsoft ) do understand what the EU wants. How come your average slashdotter can understand it yet MS and there lawyers can't?)
Saying Apple is better than MS is like saying Botulism is better than rabies.
Why not use the SI (metric system) prefixes and avoid any ambiguity?
US Imperial SI
10^3 - thousand - thousand - kilo
10^6 - million - million - mega
10^9 - billion - milliard - giga
10^12 - trillion - billion - tera
10^15 - quadrillion - trillion - peta
10^18 - quintyllion - quadrillion - exa
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Er, there are TWO countries in Western Europe that don't belong to the EU, if I disregard Turkey and Belarusse for a second.
1) You're from Norway.
You pay over 25 Euros for a Pizza that costs 5 Euros in Sweden because Norway became, like, really rich off oil-money, and then completely squandered that money on bad investments, leaving you with the highest taxes in the world and a pension fund that dwindles in comparison to what you should have had from the beginning. A car that costs 25.000 Euros in Sweden costs you more than 3 times that amount, and 95% of that money goes into the losses of said bad investments. You have nice fjords, but tend to commit mass suicide because it's cold and dark all year, and a pint of beer costs more than a car.
2) You're from Switzerland.
Your parents didn't do anything as the Nazi's were slaughtering Jews, Gypsies and Homosexuals during the holocaust. Moreover, you gave the same Nazi's bank accounts in which they dumped property and money from said Jews, Gypsies and Homosexuals. When the Nazi's lost the war, you basically kept the money to yourself. With that money you built a nice country which is clean, has nice buildings and good roads, and where all the clocks run very accurately. You pay 20 Euros for a meal at McDonalds in spite of the fact that social welfare is something you have to save up/pay for in advance. Also, in spite of a hard attitude towards drugs, you have more junkies in Zürich's central station than in all of the BeNeLux.
Now tell me, does that sound as though you have a right to complain about the EU? It doesn't sound to me as though you should open your mouth for one second even.
By the sound of it, you are French- or Italian-speaking Swiss, because no Norwegian would ever speak English that badly. This means three things:
1) You know all about vague bank accounts in which money from dubious parties disappears. You know far more about it than any country or government in the EU.
2) We don't want your lot in the EU in the first place, thank you very much.
3) I currently live in Israel. I want my wife's granddad Avi's golden teeth back, with 60 years of interest, thank you.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
I know this is a little upside down compared to other parts of the legal system, and that counterintuitive element is probably one reason why the issue is sticky. For example, in the realm of personal conduct, the law works better when it tells people what they can't do (you can't hurt other people) instead of what they can do (Conduct Code Article 2,334,202 (a)(iv): you may brush your teeth with either your left or right hand).
But with the Microsoft situation, it's different. I think it hurts consumers when you tell Microsoft they can't bundle office and media player and IE and whatever other functionality in with the operating system. I'm a consumer, and I would like those things bundled. So I don't think it is necessarily a good thing for the courts to tell Microsoft "you can't include this or that feature with Windows." But I think the court definitely should be able to say, "you must provide documentation and APIs and whatever else to make your stuff interoperable with other company's products and services." That makes much more sense to me.
Basically, it levels the playing field not be crippling Microsoft, but instead by enabling others to better get a toe in.
In principle, I don't think it is fair to cripple the more-able just for the sake of making things fair for the less-able. When I was a kid in Michigan we had 'accelerated' gradeschool classes for gifted kids in math and whatnot. Then during the political correctness craze they got shut down for being 'unfair' to other kids. Maybe it has since changed back, I'm not sure.
It's basically the Harrison Bergeron Principle (after the 1961 Kurt Vonnegut short story). In that story, "equality has been achieved by handicapping the most intelligent, athletic or beautiful members of society down to the level of the lowest common denominator." [wikipedia]. The point is, that is the wrong approach. While I may not be Microsoft's biggest fan, I think it is the wrong approach with Microsoft as well.
A-Bomb
If you think a goverment is anything more than a corporation with guns, you're fooling yourself.
All the more reason to keep the corps and the gov against each other since when gang up together against us it's the worst of both worlds.
I can run a mixed Windows and Linux system in either a flat TCP/IP network or a Microsoft style Active Directory. I can even use a Linux box as the DC. How exactly does that not mean "interoperability"?
Because MS does everything in its' power to make it not interoperate.
because offering a peek at the goddamned source code didn't go far enough, right?
No, it didn't. Not when the "peek" meant that you can't actually fscking use anything you might learn from it. If the "offer" didn't include a draconian NDA, then it might have come close.
What great MS spin you have there. You must work for the justice department.
You're funny. You think that Microsoft keeps all their assets and money in a big vault in the USA where the EU can't reach it. Do you think Microsoft only exists as a walled citadel in Redmond and a big delivery truck drives out every week with a 'Europe' sticker on its side? Do you think that once the EU is thwarted they will throw a huff and outlaw Microsoft products?
What's more likey, (meaning it's only slightly more likely than something that's never going to happen in a billion years) is that if MS doesn't pay, the EU would withdraw all legal protection from MS products and licences. Effectively make them free in the EU.
Disclaimer: I'm an American.
You're the kind of idiot that makes us look bad.
You want to sell products in Europe? Play by Europes rules.
You want to sell products in China? Play by Chinese rules.
Tell me, how do you feel about it the other way around? Do you think BMW should be "forced" to abide by American safety standards on its cars?
Do you think the Airbus should be "forced" to pay attention to the FAA when building its planes?
Do you think that French wine manufacturers should be "forced" to agree to FDA labelling requirements?
What about the U.S. "winning" the battle against European subsidies for Airbus. Sounds like 'foreigners' doodling with a European company.
What's good for the goose is good for the gander. If you're going to play on the world market, expect to following the rules of other jurisidictions. Otherwise, pull your products out.
MS doesn't have to pay the EC. They could simply withdraw from Europe, and totally ignore the EU's rules & fines & taxes. It's no one's fault but Microsoft.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell