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EU Court Upholds Microsoft Antitrust Fines
a_n_d_e_r_s writes "The ongoing saga of Microsoft's misuse of their dominant position in the EU marketplace to block competitors may be finally over, with the fine set to 860 million euros (just over 1 billion dollars). In 2004 Microsoft was ordered to provide certain information to competitors but failed to do so and was given an hefty fine. Now the EU General Court in Luxembourg has upheld the EU Commission decision and ruled against Microsoft."
This is a minor reduction (4.3%) of the original fine because of a minor technicality. Microsoft, naturally, is unhappy with the result.
Not sure about that. Since 2004 they sold at least a billion pricey products ; that makes a pretty juicy ROI.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
This is indeed a conspiracy. The EU knew about the impending financial crisis in 2004 and decided that instead of averting it with that knowledge they would fine MS to raise a small amount of cash that won't help very much.
Wow, that is a chunk of change - the EU could really use the money right now too (conspiracy ???). This could pay for the bailouts being debated right now throughout the EU.
The fine is 860 million euros. The Spanish banks are getting up to 100 billion euros. The Irish got some 60 billion euros, Greece has gotten several hundred billions so far. These 860 million euros are chump change in comparison.
Yeah, how horrible of a European court to exact a fine in European currency. This is almost on par with Iran allowing trading oil in other currencies than US dollars!
Microsoft has to report that they're unhappy with the result. They have to whine and complain. If they didn't, it wouldn't be seen as sufficient punishment.
The ______ Agenda
Microsoft's competitors and consumers aren't too happy with the result either. I'm sure they would have preferred that MS not have engaged in such practices in the first place.
make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
Perhaps because they deliberately enlarged the EU through letting in countries that they *knew* could not meet the conditions as it suited Germany to have a larger market for their goods (and therefore their economy). Germany then was the first country to throw away the rules when *they* could not stick to them as a result of the cost of re-unification.
To summarise. Germany benefitted from the previous situation despite the risks. Now they get to pay the bill.
Rubbish.
Microsoft has been a predatory ruthless monopolist in all jurisdictions they trade in.
If it wasn't for lobbying/bribes, they'd have been prosecuted in just about every country in the world.
The thing is that the EU courts do nothing domestically, but boy, when they see a US company, it is no holds barred
Bullshit. The largest antitrust fine to date: €992M, on a cartel of lift makers within the EU. The difference is that the myopic US press doesn't bother covering anything other than fines on US companies, so you don't hear about them.
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Apple are the worst offenders and is the most anti-competitive company in the industry, they're worse than Microsoft.
Totally!!
Well, except for the fact that they have nothing approaching a monopoly in any industry in which they operate and consumers have the easy choice to go with alternatives should they dislike Apple's offerings whereas Microsoft had ~95% of the desktop market at the time the anti-trust cases occurred (and still have ~90% of the market).
Other than that, you're right - totally worse than Microsoft. ...