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China Launches Antitrust Probe Vs. Microsoft
snydeq writes "China has launched an investigation into whether Microsoft unfairly dominates its software market, according to a state media report. A working committee of China's State Intellectual Property Office is investigating whether Microsoft engaged in discriminatory pricing and will also look at Microsoft's practice of bundling other software programs within its Windows operating system, according to the report. The probe is part of a greater sweep of operating systems and other software developed by multinational companies that cost much more in China than in the U.S. 'On the one hand, global software firms, taking advantage of their monopoly position, set unreasonably high prices for genuine software while on the other hand, they criticise Chinese for poor copyright awareness. This is abnormal,' a source said."
Commie software pirates vs. Monopolistic MegaCorp. Who will the people side with? Who will win?
let go of the shitty 1950s mccarthian scare about communism already ffs.
Read radical news here
I guess China noticed how the EU keeps extorting Microsoft for a few billion a year, and figured they want some of that.
After all, the EU has set up an entire class of laws which apply to Microsoft, and nobody else. Like how Microsoft can't bundle a media player with their OS... and yet every other OS company is ok with having a bundled media player. Same thing with the browser: Opera can't compete in the market, so they are trying to legislate their way into sales using that same precedent. So it's ok for Apple and Linux to include a web browser... but the EU is going to say it's not ok for Windows to have a browser.
When you are looking to extort money from somebody, you don't need a reason, you need a pretext. And that's all they can ever come up with when they try to legislate their way into Microsoft's pocket.
The FOSSies may love trying to legislate their way into market share (even though it's not actually working- Linux's market share has been stagnant for over a decade)... but it's damaging the computer industry as a whole.
Who do you want deciding what applications and products we are allowed to use: the marketplace and yourself, or the government and lawmakers? The FOSSies are trying to make it the latter, since they can't win. It's more important for them to win, than for all of us to have choice- they are supposedly all about choice... unless people dare choose commercial software.
China sues Microsoft for exactly the same real reason as US and EU -- Microsoft has tons of money. You know, when you get rich, you'll be followed after by lawyers, tax man, regulators, police or the gangsters.