Why Microsoft's EU Ballot Screen Doesn't Measure Up

An anonymous reader writes "A lengthy interview on Groklaw discusses the EU's case against Microsoft. The case is supported by Opera, Google, Mozilla, ECIS, and the Free Software Foundation Europe. The EU has demanded that users be offered a 'ballot screen' to make it easier for users to select other browsers. Microsoft has responded by implementing the ballot screen as a web page inside IE. While this may nominally satisfy EU's demand, it is unlikely to satisfy users who prefer other browsers. In order to select another browser, users must be running IE. Also, users will be shown security warnings when choosing from the ballot. Microsoft's ability to charge patent fees in Europe is also discussed: why are they allowed to charge patent fees where software patents are not recognized?"

Comments

This is a waste of time and money

[RichardDeVries]

Almost nobody cares about browser choice on Windows. Sure, it's hard to really get rid of IE, but installing another browser has never been a problem. Same goes for media players, mail clients and IM clients.
I think the EU should go after closed formats that have become de facto standards. .doc, .xls, MAPI. These are cases of true monopoly that truly hinder competetitors from entering the market.
Freeing these formats would actually mean something. Going for a browser ballot is nothing more than a symbolic gesture to show that we're willing to stand up to big companies. I bet Microsoft loves this, they get some practise in this kind of legal battle, learn how far they can go and perhaps even gain some credit if they comply. And complying is easy because a ballot box doesn't hurt them at all.