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EC To Pursue Antitrust Despite Microsoft's IE Move
snydeq writes "The European Commission will proceed with its antitrust case against Microsoft regardless of Microsoft's decision to strip IE from Windows 7 in Europe. Europe's top antitrust regulator said the EC would draw up a remedy that allows computer users 'genuine consumer choice,' noting that stripping out IE from Windows 'may potentially be positive,' but 'rather than more choice, Microsoft seems to have chosen to provide less.' Jon von Tetzchner, CEO of Opera, whose complaint to the European Commission at the end of 2007 sparked the initial antitrust investigation, said Microsoft is 'trying to set the remedy itself by stripping out IE. ... Now that Microsoft has acknowledged it has been breaking the law by bundling IE into Windows, the Commission must push ahead with an effective remedy,' he said."
The EU is doing what the USA should have done a decade ago
What, get government involved in the design of software products? Perhaps they should also dictate which file system you're allowed to easily enable with Linux distros that happen to be provided by private companies when they ship netbooks? How about the choices of desktop wallpaper? And mouse pointer icons, of course. I think the EC should really set up a high priority commission to dictate the shape of mouse pointers, and to make sure that any successful operating system is only shipped with very poor mouse pointers, and advertisements for third party software vendors' mouse pointer icon product packages. I can't believe that the spineless EC has gone soft on the mouse pointer scandal.
You Americans talk so big - when someone else shows cohones you can only scream & stamp your little feet.
Yes, yes, Death To America, etc. You're so original!
Showing cohones? What are you talking about? All the EC is doing is telling a company from another country how they have to create the software they sell. It's not clear, exactly, why Europe is utterly lacking the cohones to give birth to a company that can create a better operating system, or actually cause another option to be more popular. Classic stuff, there. You're Brave and Studly because you are willing to use threats and destruction to tear down a company's products, rather than actually create something that competes with it. You'd rather cripple an operating system than build an operating system. So courageous! So progressive!
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
EU want MS to include a choice in the Win7 installer that gives a user the choise to install either EI, Firefox or Opera. Instead MS just went out to remove the choice of having a brower entirely.
Even if Microsoft is forced to stop their anti-competitive practises they still don't give the user the choice of a different browser. Microsoft knows that nobody bought the Windows XP version without the Windows Media Player so they know that by removing IE from the European version of Windows7 people are still only going to see IE from an imported version of Windows 7.
Fsck them. Fsck them hard in their ass EU! I hope they'll bleed. And stop whining about the EU only wanting to make money because their fines are a tiny drop in the financial ocean. Ever cared to look at how much money the EU has? Well do it then and stop whine...
Here be signatures
When did Venezuela join the EU?
Agreed entirely. I'm off-topic here, but I've got karma to burn. Anyone who declares themselves a mod-martyr is obviously fishing for mods (in nearly every case) - And OP made a valid, on-topic, insightful post (mod-martyr aside). WTF? Just make your point and move on!
[OK - There's a joke up there for those of you about to quote and flame me.]
Seriously, I was a big MS basher with regards to the browser thing back in the days when they were facing their initial anti-trust suits and I just wanted my Netscape. But now about all they can do is start bundling competitor's software (again) to make these people happy. Does Norton include AVG on their install discs? Not last time I checked...
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
Agreed entirely. I'm off-topic here, but I've got karma to burn.
...
[OK - There's a joke up there for those of you about to quote and flame me.]
Pretty fuckin funny, too.
I've got karma to burn.
Whale
I don't - at least in any particular instance - usually - and that's why this phenomenon is so insidious and such a threat to free speech. ...because you never know, and rarely can point the finger at an individual. Like you for example - I cannot point my finger at you. You may be a shill, or you may be somebody interested in the search for truth, and I cannot tell the difference. However, perhaps with time you will reveal your true nature, or perhaps already have if I was sufficiently motivated to look up all your comments - which I am not. I think there is a strong consensus that shills operate in droves with their sock puppets here, and I am confident in what I say.
Certainly not; you seem to miss the point of moderation entirely. According to Wikipedia, moderation is "is the process of eliminating or lessening extremes", and according to the dictionary, to moderate is to "reduce the excessiveness of" and "make less violent". Now, if you mod an obviously on-topic post as off-topic just because you don't agree with it, or mark a score 1 post as overrated, or capriciously mark something as a flamebait, then you are not reducing the extremes. You are expressing your personal opinion in the most extreme manner possible, by abusing the power of the mod system to swipe the post you dislike with off the radar and push it into oblivion, without the poster having a chance to respond. If you want to express an opinion, post a response. As a moderator, you should act responsibly and respect the implicit social code.