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EU Fines Microsoft $1.3 Billion
jd writes "The EU has slammed Microsoft with a fine of €899 million ($1.337 billion at current exchange rates) for perpetuating violations of the 2004 antitrust ruling.The fine is the sum of daily fines running from June 21, 2006 to October 21, 2007. It is the first company ever to be fined for non-compliance. The amazing thing is that the EU now expects Microsoft to comply and 'close a dark chapter' in their history. The EU has opened new investigations into Microsoft's practices and gave a lukewarm response to the company's turning over yet another new leaf last week."
That's 1.337.
Ryan - http://www.thecosmotron.com/
From a BBC News article on this: (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6998490.stm) "Meanwhile, in the world of servers the fight is still on, with a new kid on the block - the open-source Linux operating system - making as strong gains in the market as Microsoft." (bold mine) I mean really.. new kid on the block? who is writing these?
As I understand it, fines issued by the EU go to EU member states.
I also don't understand why the size of the fine "clearly" indicates that people are lining their pockets. This is not the largest fine ever issued. (ExxonMobil was fined $5 Billion for Exxon Valdez, later halved, but so far not paid.)
The EU will simply take the money by force. Microsoft has assets moving through the EU, in the form of their revenue from sales of their products. The EU will walk in to the retail outlets and take that revenue until they have their money - the money from every copy of Windows and every xbox sold will go directly to the EU, and Microsoft will never receive it. This is the standard method that courts use for extracting fines from recalcitrant corporations - you don't ban their products, you just take their products.
And they'll keep doing it for as long as it takes.
Probably a terrible precendent, actually. Imagine some off-brand European retailer selling 'Windows XP' that they've compiled and pressed to disk. People would think they're getting A Microsoft Product but actually its someone else who made it. Then Microsoft's reputation would be tarnished if the copy is bad.
If I built soapbox racers in my garage at home and branded them BMW, then someone lost a head in a collision in my not-quite-safe car, don't you think that BMW would be less than thrilled?
Reason, free market capitalism, and individualism
They do again and again. It's mostly, but not always price fixing. Other examples include Volkswagen that threatened their Italian dealers to pull the dealership when they sold to customers not living in Italy.
Fines are usually very hefty and companies usually comply. Micropsoft risks to fall really flat on their face if they try their usual stints here.
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
You seem unclear on the concept of "rights". A "right" is something that a government has decided you may do. This government has decided that they do not have this "right". You can't wave a magic BS stick in the air and make it so that they do. They don't have the right because the EU government bloody well says they don't, and that's all there is to it.
What's 1.3 billion to Microsoft? They threw a cool billion away because they couldn't be bothered doing proper quality control for the 360 and they threw away 4 billion on the original Xbox. Lord knows how much more they've thrown away. They probably burn $100 bills for fun.
The only punishments that would hurt Microsoft have been illegal since the Dark Ages.
"by that I mean people who don't sit on slashdot all day wondering why everyone else isn't building robots" DECS
You were shooting for +5 funny, right?
But they do:
Lift cartel: http://www.eubusiness.com/Competition/lifts-cartel-eu.33
Zippers: http://www.eubusiness.com/Competition/1190197926.91/
Dutch brewers: http://www.eubusiness.com/Competition/beer-cartel.09/
All hundred million dollar fines or more...
Indeed. The fine is a percentage of the turnover of the company in question (small companies get relatively small fines, large companies relatively large - hence the size of the MS fine). It flows into the EU budget, which is also composed of contributions by EU member states. So basically, the fine adds 899 billion euros to the balance, which means that the member states need to pay less.
MS would probably want to pay up quick, before the dollar devalues even further...
From the EU website:
The penalty payment is paid into the EU Budget. It does not increase the budget, but reduces the contribution from Member States and so from taxpayers.
So in deference to us paying the Microsoft tax Microsoft is paying (a small part of) EU tax, brilliant
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
I believe there was a plan at one point to split them in three (Legal, Marketing and Sales AFAIR). But the new regime changed the DoJ's mind.
"Linux is for noobs"-The new MS fud strategy
You mean waterboarding?
--- guns don't kill people, people with guns kill people ---
You don't really understand the scale of government, do you? I work for a small (tiny, miniscule, microscopic) government agency. We have maybe 50 or 80 employees. Our budget for next 5 years is in the hundreds of millions (US$). I award contracts worth tens of millions of dollars on a routine basis.
If MS was to try and pull that, we'd contract with Red Hat, Novell, somebody, and be up and running before the licenses expired. There's only a few apps that are Windows only that don't have linux equivalents; if someone was to throw a few million at it they'd be ported to linux in no time, even if it meant running with wine in the interim.
Try a stunt like that with a real government that can throw billions at the problem, and MS would find itself in the freezer. Remember, governments can pass laws; they can easily pass a law suspending copyright until they get it sorted out.
Oh - and those licenses, we don't need them: you copyrights are void.
I expect posts like this on digg where the average age appears to be ten, but your post is infantile. As mentioned here just above your own post are a small sample of the numerous companies that the EU has fined. The only difference is Microsoft disobeyed the EU after being fined. Hence this further fine.
Frankly, the EU doles out fines to any companies who disobey European laws. Microsoft broke the law they got fined, they ignored the findings/requirements of the remedy they got fined again. There isn't any evil European persecution of an American company going on here. Just a company being fined for breaking the law.
I think it would severely hurt industry across the EU if the sale of Microsoft products were banned, especially since the EU has to deal with the rest of the world who for the most part use Microsoft products. It's just not possible for free/open source software to inter-operate effectively with Microsoft products at the moment, which was kind of the whole point of the anti-trust ruling.
They don't get to keep their monopoly. They get to pay the fine and change their behaviour or get fined again.
That's how it works in the EU, you don't get to continue doing what you were fined for after you pay your fine! (Otherwise people would be speeding all the time, and when stopped would say, "I already paid my fine", and would get let off!)
I think it works that way in the USA too, but don't quote me on that.
I wank in the shower.
There was a time when parking fines in London were less than the cost of an all-day parking space. Predictably people parked wherever they liked. The solution was much stiffer fines, wheel clamping and the ability to tow cars away and impound them.
The same thing is happening here, complying would cost more than the fine. We need some equivalent of "wheel clamping" for Microsoft.
I wouldn't count on it happening though, I can see states getting used to a regular "microsoft fine" dividend. They will probably have a routine of Microsoft saying it will clean up, not doing so and being fined again.
Every time MS vs. EU is discussed on slashdot someone drags this stupid argument out of the closet.
MS would be very, very screwed if they would try to do anything like this. Let me put things into perspective:
The EU area has a GPD of $14.51 trillion, while MS has a revenue of around $51 billion, globally. The EU has the power of the police, government, military behind them which can seize MS's assets and if MS decides to pull out of EU they would leave billions in assets behind. If events reach that point, EU given the national security clauses in copyright conventions would simply suspend MS copyright in Europe while Europe moves to Linux/BSD/Solaris at a hugely accelerated pace. Given that the EU is the largest economy block in the world, everyone else would be forced to use those open technologies and MS would find itself with a pretty minimal market share in a few years.
Even Microsoft isn't this stupid to make a move anything like this.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
You can't have free trade when a single corporation owns the marketplace. That is why the EU stepped in, to preserve "free trade" ensuring there IS competition.
The EU is not an evil government and Microsoft is not a defenseless do-gooder. This is not the first time MS has been in trouble because of its business practices, althought in the US, since Bush came to power, they've sure enjoyed a nice ride over there, haven't they?
I've seen this argued in a number of places, including the FairTax book. To an extent it is correct, however this isn't a reason not to fine corporations. Simply put, in non-monopoly situations the free market sets the price, not the corporation. This means that if a corporation is fined and raises prices as a result, its competitors benefit because they do not have to raise prices. If the company that gets fined does not raise their prices, then their margins go down (which means less profits or even possibly write downs).
So lets apply this to Microsoft and then the free market in general. In this case Microsoft will have to pay lots of money to the EU. If they attempt to pass this cost on to consumers, it will strengthen OS X, Linux, Solaris, etc as alternatives to Windows. This means that in the case of Microsoft monopolizing the market, the EU fine can accomplish its task of lessening Microsoft's stake in the market if it is large enough. But if they have full control of the market, well that's why governments reserve the right to break companies up. If a fine would not be sufficient to punish a company, they could be split into smaller companies that would have to compete against each other.
So in the end, it isn't necessary to give the fines to Microsoft's competitors as you propose. Simply the act of fining Microsoft should be enough to help its competitors out.
"You know, there are real dictators in the world, who are truly evil, and are working to oppress their people." The removal of powers from elected parliaments, by devious method, to an unelected and undemocratic executive, Council of ministers, which holds its meetings in secret, unelected commissioners, and a very weak parliament that is bought and paid for by the latter.
Too bad that your prejudice has kept you from keeping track of recent developments. This criticism has been levelled at the EU for a long time and was to an extent justified, but guess what? They have actually done something about it. The European Parliament, which is directly elected and no longer as weak as it used to be, has received new powers with every treaty revision since 1992 and plays an integral role in EU law-making. Meetings of the Council of Ministers are not secret, as you can see on its website, which states: "All Council deliberations under the co-decision procedure are open to the public. The Council's first deliberations on legislative acts other than those adopted by co-decision are open to the public. The Council regularly holds public debates on important issues affecting the interests of the Union and its citizens, as well as policy debates on the Council's programmes." FYI, the co-decision procedure is the most commonly used procedure in EU legislation. Granted, institutional reform is slow, the EU still has work to do in terms of its accountability and communication with citizens, but that hardly makes it an evil oppressive dictatorship, which is the point that you were trying to make. Apart from Belarus, you will indeed not find oppressive dictatorships in Europe at this time, and the EU was established precisely to keep it this way, which brings me to your next point.
Yes, Europe has a fine tradition historically to be able to ignore history and repeat past mistakes yet again. Europe's ability for arrogance is only matched by its fantastic ability for creating evil, two world wars, and hundreds of millions of dead. How could I possibly not trust a European elite running out of control, and with a massive cavern where democratic due process should exist, but doesn't.
Please explain first who you mean by "Europe" and who exactly is being "arrogant". Is it Britain, Germany, Russia, France, Greece, Spain, Poland, Hungary, Sweden? Does every single one of this country have a "fine tradition to be able to ignore history and repeat past mistakes"? Last time I checked, Germans are still making up for the crimes of the nazis and not exactly preparing a second Holocaust. The Scandinavians no longer send out marauding bands of pirates to rob frightened people in coastal places. In Spain acknowledgment is slowly growing for the abuses and oppression of the Franco dictatorship, even on the political right. Italy does not seem eager to resurrect the Roman Empire. You may note that none of these examples has anything to do with the other, which illustrates that you can't generalise across an entire continent. I could even go on and argue that the one country which seemed unable to learn from history (notably European colonial history) in the last few years, with an elite running out of control causing millions of dead, does not lie in Europe, but I don't want to ignite another flamewar. In any case, as I mentioned before, the EU was established to prevent repetition of the mistakes of the past. It has been rather successful at that, considering that France and Germany are unlikely to go to war with each other at any point in the near future. It obviously does not have a perfect record, as was shown in the fall of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Still, I fail to see how you can see the current European elite as being "out of control" or suggest that it will cause millions of people to die any time soon.
This same EU that's failed 13 years of account audits?
What does failing 13