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EC Considering Removing Internet Explorer From Windows
Itsabouttime writes "In a preliminary ruling, the European Commission told Microsoft that linking Internet Explorer to its dominant Windows operating system violates EC rules. The EC's ruling was triggered by a complaint from IE rival Opera. Microsoft could seek to offer a Windows version without IE, as it did in the EC's 2004 ruling on Windows Media Player."
Their "monopoly" also apparently stops people from installing any of the _myriad_ alternative OS's, many of which are free. That's some kind of "magic monopoly", the kind where there are a huge number of alternatives and many free ones.
It's like if back in the standard oil days there had been 25 different oil vendors and some of them were charities which gave it away for free. But then they decided to charge Standard Oil anyway to make a few bucks.
I get tired of the "monpoly!" charges against MS. They simply and provably are not a monopoly in an economic or rational sense. That they negotiated a deal with the DoJ only means that the law in the US is more about politics than about rationality. And it's even more so about politics in the EU.