Actually, that is entirely untrue. You should go look up the legal definition of 'bundling' in antitrust, because you have it wrong.
I have it right and you obviously don't know what you're talking about. Do you even understand what antitrust laws are supposed to be preventing? I'll give you a hint, it isn't preventing companies from making money by offering better products.
Go, read, learn, come back. Heck, read the post I made right after this thread and see why the bundling is the illegal part in the example I showed.
Lets say that they do get Microsoft to actually do some proper programming and separate out IE from Windows so that it can be uninstalled in such a way that the OS can go about it's business. Furthermore, lets say that they even get Microsoft to develop a wizard during installation that lets a Joe Sixpack choose from a list of browsers to install.
Is this going to make ANY difference to Joe Sixpack or is he still just going to install the first one on the list (which would probably be IE... fair enough since it is Microsoft's OS and they're obviously going to be a bit bias here)? If the average user is confronted with a choice of browsers, are any of them going to know enough about the choices to make an informed decision?
It will make a difference, the question is how much of a difference. Probably not a lot, which is why that proposed solution is not a very good remedy by itself. In fact, it would be more effective to require multiple browsers be installed by default than it would be to have a one time installer. Better yet (from a market perspective) would be requiring multiple browsers and a mechanism for Web developers to launch other Web browsers from within IE (although there are numerous practical and security problems with such a solution).
Any real solution will have to be in multiple parts, to motivate Web developers to target standards, to motivate MS to target standards, to motivate users to choose the best browser for their needs. The free market has been broken long time and most people simply assume it is working anyway. A lot needs to be fixed in order for it to function effectively again and a one time browser installation option, is not going to be close to enough on its own.
ive never had a mac so i wouldnt know for sure, but i would assume that OSX or leopard or whatever its called bundles something
They bundle lots of things. But bundling, in general, is not what MS is being charged with. They're being charged with undermining markets, bundling just happens to be the mechanism.
Analogy. Bob fires a gun into Tom and kills him. Bob is arrested for murder. Jake fires a gun into a target and wins the olympics. Jake is not arrested for murder. Is that one-sided, or is it that firing a gun is not illegal, while murder is?
Safari is bundled with OS X, as are a lot of utility programs. However, you can easily download and install another browser and delete the safari.app file from your/Applications folder. Then you can run System Preferences and set your default browser, if the browser itself hasn't already done so.
None of this is important to antitrust abuse.
And anyway, Apple has not been found guilty of violating the Sherman Act. Microsoft has, therefore different rules apply to them.
No, the same laws apply to both companies. The case against MS, however is made simpler because most of the findings of fact are done and because MS is a repeat offender. Apple can bundle anything they want with OS X or Safari because that does not constitute antitrust abuse. You have to be leveraging monopoly influence through bundling, i.e. one of the bundled products has to constitute a monopoly. Neither Safari nor OS X is monopoly in the legal or economic sense.
Look, Microsoft broke the law when they told OEMs they couldn't bundle other web browsers. Now everyone and their mother, including you, is upset at Microsoft for bundling their browser with the OS. But bundling isn't illegal unless it is anticompetitive, e.g., telling the OEMs they can't bundle an additional browser.
Your assertion that telling OEMs they can't bundle other browsers is the only thing that would be illegal is absurd. That's not even important. Simply making IE bundled, even if they allowed OEMs to remove it is still an antitrust abuse. Anything that gives them an advantage their competitors cannot replicate because of the Windows monopoly is an antitrust abuse. Antitrust abuse is leveraging one (monopolized)market into another market. They have to keep Windows separate from other markets they enter and it is MS's responsibility to insure that happens. A responsible company would ship Windows and IE on separate disks to OEMs and have different branches of the company and different individuals contacting said OEM about including them.
If I install Ubuntu I get the fucking kitchen sink. I get so much more software than when I install Windows it isn't even funny. How is that not anticompetitive?
Jesus Christ on a Segway! Please go learn what the hell a trust is and then how they can be abused to undermine other markets. If you'd bother to educate yourself even a little on this topic you'll see the answer to your question is obvious. Ubuntu does not constitute a monopoly on anything and thus cannot be leveraged to undermine anything. Your question is like asking why one person is arrested for murder just because they fired a gun, when another person fired a gun and was given a silver medal at the olympics. You have to completely misunderstand murder laws to even ask such a question, just as you completely fail to understand antitrust laws. I'm not going over it again. Go find out what the laws are and why they exist and come back. I'm not even reading the rest of your post.
We seem to have an egg and the chicken problem here. Which appeared first? The Web in general and websites, or in this particular case, IE?
That's not a problem at all. MS was late to the internet game and I was browsing standards compliant Websites with Mosaic before MS even had a TCP/IP engine in Windows.
What is stopping those banks to make their websites standards compliant? I know that the majority of their users, almost all of them, are using IE. But if the banks in the first place coded their sites to be standards compliant, we would not be in this situation.
MS's bundling combined with breaking standards made it economically in the bank's best interest to code the way they did at the time. That action, was blatantly illegal, so MS is responsible for the results of that crime and should be the sole entity that bears the cost for fixing the problem.
Ditto for the rest of the web. Laziness of web developers attributed to a great extent to Microsoft's current position as a monopoly.
If you have a hard job, give it to a lazy person. They'll find an easier way to do it. Capitalism exploits the laziness and greed and self interest of people to build an economy that gives us better products, cheaper. It's a long solved problem. The problem we have here is one company broke the law an undermined capitalism such that human nature instead brought them profit while bringing everyone else worse products at higher costs. Why do you think we have capitalism in the first place? It's not because it is more moral, but because it works.
No reporting a crime is not whining, but demanding they provide your products alongside theirs is.
Opera did not demand any specific solution. They reported a crime and then told the authorities what damage had been done to them.
As I have stated earlier, education goes a long way.
Education does not trump self interest. People generally do what is best for them, not society. MS has broken the law so that what benefits them immediately is no longer working in the interests of society as well. Web developers in particular aren't stupid, they're pragmatic.
Look at Firefox. It is steadily eating away IE's market share, and users are each they more and more aware of the alternatives.
Yeah, a product obviously superior which has been obviously superior for many years is slowly gaining some share but is still way behind the inferior product. That's your support for not enforcing the law?
Sometimes it is impossible to restore things to the way they were.
Sure, but that isn't the case and MS should be held responsible for the foreseeable consequences of their actions. A decade ago they said they were going to bundle IE and use that to break standards on the Web. They did that. If they have to sell off all the company's assets to other companies and use the profits to fix the problem, then that is what should be done. Rewarding criminals because the damage they cause is too large makes no sense.
A large enough fine in this case and an order to behave in the future is more appropriate in this case.
What fine is large enough to stop them. We're looking at a company that is breaking the law to secure a monopoly on the platform virtually all software runs on. They have been given huge fines and simply kept on breaking the law. They haven't even stopped bundling IE or followed the suggestions of standards bodies. What, exactly, do you think would make them change?
Put it this way - if you created a product (think time and money) for sale so you cuold make profit - how would you feel if someone came up to you and said "No sorry, you need to invest more time and money and configure your product the way *I* want it, not how you want it.
We have this thing called "rule by law" where we write laws that all companies and people are expected to obey. That way, companies are not surprised. They know the laws in advance and can reasonably expect those laws will be enforced. The problem here is not that the government is suddenly changing the rules. antitrust laws have been on the books for a hundred years.
No, the surprising thing here is that one company broke the law to drive other companies out of business, and that law was not effectively enforced. A good analogy would be a law that says you can't go rob liquor stores with a gun and if you do you go to prison and can't own a gun (the means of your crime) for the rest of your life. So some guy goes and robs a liquor store, and when he's dragged into court he donates half the money to the judge and sheriff's re-election fund. Then they decide to waive the jail time and let him keep his gun. He then goes on a robbery spree, and continues his donations. He gets sued and loses, but the settlement is less money than he's making as a robber. He gets arrested in Germany, but they give him a warning and ship him back to the states. The robber shopkeepers complain, but he takes out ads in the paper calling them whiners and says they are suing him about a wage dispute, when he really just robber them. He pays a few people to spread word of mouth and write editorials about how people are unfairly picking on him, saying he shouldn't be able to own a gun, when other people own guns.
MS broke the law and they knew the law before they did it. They're still breaking the law. It's hurting legitimate businesses, costing us money, and slowing innovation so we have worse products and services. There was no surprise for MS, just for legitimate businesses who stupidly though our courts were not so easily bribed and that the law might be enforced effectively.
Either you can bundle whatever you want or you shouldn't be able to bundle anything.
Either you can fire a firearm at whatever you want or you shouldn't be able to fire firearm at anything.
Yeah ignoring the results of actions and writing laws that prevent actions that cause negative results instead of just banning actions. Brilliant!
So what's next? I think freecell has a monopoly.
Your lack of information and understanding is astonishing. You managed to completely misunderstand antitrust law or the reasons behind it. The funny thing is, I don't think MS should be bundling freecell, but that is not because "freecell is monopoly" Windows is a monopoly. Because of that power, MS can break other markets (like Web browsers or solitaire games) and consumers suffer. Products are worse, costs passed on are higher, and innovation is slowed or stopped. Please go learn what antitrust law is about and why it was written then come back and comment from an educated perspective.
We should file anti-trust suits against... Ford, Chrysler, and GM since they're obviously using closed standards and preventing their customers from being able to use competitor's parts...
Yes and since each of those companies has a monopoly on cars (thus the influence to be a trust) they are obviously undermining the market and abusing that trust so antitrust law applies.
.. Seriously, let Microsoft do their thing.
I'll consider taking your advice on economics when you understand the meaning of all the words you use. Seriously, learn what 'antitrust' means before presuming to advise people about laws regarding trusts.
Look it's another antitrust story about Microsoft! Look it's already filled with dozens of comments by people who don't know what antitrust abuse is. Seriously people, you're making Slashdot look as ignorant as other Web forums. Don't people think it might be a good idea to know what they're talking about before telling us what they think about it?
Antitrust abuse is undermining free trade in a market using the large amount of influence a company or group has in a separate market. Antitrust laws were made because trusts discovered they could undermine capitalism by tying markets they controlled to markets they did not and then they did not have to work hard and spend money to make the best product in the second market; they could dominate it with an inferior product that did not cost them to produce. This also resulted in them having little or no motivation to please customers, improve that product, or reduce costs... undermining all the important benefits we were gaining from capitalism in the first place. Without antitrust laws, capitalism collapses into a series of competing monopolists, which is why pretty much every country around the world implemented very similar antitrust laws, which have stabilized economies and prevented the worst abuses.
Example: How to abuse a monopoly. Suppose I gain a monopoly or trust. It doesn't matter how. Say I contract with a city to lay the wires that distribute electricity. Fine, this is a common monopoly scenario in the US. Now suppose I decide I want to move into a new market, like selling bottled water. Legally, antitrust law says because water is a separate pre-existing market, I cannot tie those two markets together. The most common form of illegal tying is bundling. Suppose I start shipping every one of my electrical distribution customers a "free" case of bottled water every month. The vast majority of sellers of bottled water go out of business, because everyone already has bottled water. This is both unfair and destabilizes the market by driving good companies out of business without having a better product. Then, I slowly raise the price of electrical power distribution to cover my expense in purchasing and distributing bottled water. What if my water is not as good and tastes slightly off? What if the bottles are non-recyclable? What if it costs me more than it did previous companies and I'm passing on higher costs to you?
In capitalism all those problems are solved by the market. I'm motivated to solve them because it will make my bottled water more attractive and get me more sales. With monopoly abuse, I have no motivation to solve those problems. If people want electricity in their houses they will buy my bottled water, so who cares if it sucks and is overpriced? What can they do?
I'll tell you what they can do. They can pass criminal laws that make such bundling illegal. If you tie a product in a market where you have a huge amount of influence (either as a company or a cartel) to a separate pre-existing market, you are breaking the law. That law makes a lot of sense and has stabilized our economy an insured competition. A lot of people have proposed solutions other than antitrust law, that would let some currently illegal bundling continue and try to solve the problem in a different way, basically trying to solve a specific case by writing laws to cover that case instead of general laws that cover all cases. I think that is a myopic view and misguided.
So what did MS do? They took a product (Windows) where they had huge influence on the market and bundled numerous other products with it. These are products from separate pre-existing markets. When they did it, they knew it was breaking the law, but they figured they'd make enough money to buy their way out of trouble. They paid off companies with enough money to sue them successfully. They made huge campaign contributions to the people who were supposed to be enforcing the laws. They spent large amounts of money on misinformation campaigns to confuse people about the law and spread mi
You mean the fricking law which prevented one firm gaining almost total domination of the desktop operating systems market, and then leveraging that to take over the office productivity, web browser and other key markets?
The law itself is fine. What didn't work was the US court system which was blatantly bribed and undermined by the new administration of corrupt scumbags.
True - all the firms that are sure they don't want to sell to government, military, education, healthcare (EU, remember), get money from EU development grants or otherwise nibble a slice of government pork, file tax returns, access government websites or do business with anyone else who wants to do these things will be able to ignore this completely. But, you never know, it might have some small influence on the market.
What are you talking about? If someone undermines the market for soda pop, not selling to the government is not huge deal and if they want to do business with the government, what are you proposing they have to do? Your plan makes no sense at all outside the context of the software services market. Admit it, you didn't think your idea through.
Until you remove the big lock in - proprietary file formats and protocols - any attempt to break up IT format monopolies will be pissing in the wind because non-slashdot-community customers will voluntarily choose the software that reliably opens their files.
Those are significant concerns and I believe the government should enforce their use for any interactions with said government, but it doesn't solve antitrust abuses by itself, especially in markets that don't have anything to do with file formats or protocols.
...and, politically, "ensuring file interoperability for future generations" sounds like an easier sell than singling out one, successful (foreign) company and going mediaeval on their arse.
Singling out one company? You actually believe that nonsense MS has paid people to repeat? The EU has convicted many companies of antitrust abuses over the years, most of them european ones. They been incredibly lenient with MS because of the diplomatic issue. Anything the EU does will sound terrible if you just parrot MS's PR department.
No we're talking about antitrust abuse not robbery, but both are criminal code violations.
Microsoft doesn't need to be punished for past crimes.
Past crimes? They're still doing it. It is an ongoing crime and there is no statute of limitations for antitrust abuse I've ever heard of.
Microsoft needs to be controlled and very tightly regulated, and other vendors should be given the exact same chances. Thus, no PCs should be sold with Windows installed.
You seem confused. This isn't about punishing MS for having a monopoly. That is legal. This is about punishing MS for abusing their monopoly into other markets. Their sale with computer systems is perfectly legal and what right does the government have to tell Dell what items they can bundle together if Dell is not breaking any laws?
The user will have to buy, steal, borrow or download that separately.
How is that helpful in any way? What problem are you trying to solve with this and who do you think it would help?
The solution they're describing isn't really going far enough, because in a sense it transforms a monopoly into a cartel, with members chosen by the EU.
A cartel would have to be collaborating together to hurt consumers and profit, but MS's best interests and methods of profit do not coincide with those of the other companies producing browsers. Firefox wants to promote open standards as a charity, Google wants a capable browser so they can sell services, Apple wants to make money on their own services and Opera wants standards so they have sell work to do for selling their browser to mobile device makers.
Well, John T Trustbuster, I'm confused then. Apple has a huge percent, surely monopoly-level, of the DAP market.
That's not sure at all. It's sure MS has one because the courts have already ruled it does. In making that determination they looked at what MS's customers could choose as alternatives. If Dell wants to include and OS on the systems they sell what are their options and what do they consider. Mostly they just have Windows and Linux and Linux has no real market share. OS X is not counted because Apple doesn't license it for that market so Dell can't choose it.
So what does an EU citizen looking to purchase a digital audio player consider? Do they consider media capable cell phones? If so, Apple does not have a monopoly and their share is less than 50%. If not, Apple has a little over 70% and does have monopoly influence. In the EU, where there are laws preventing cell phone locking to providers, customers probably do consider phones and Apple will be ruled to not have monopoly influence. This has been under investigation for over a year now.
So basically, with MS, it is clear cut, but with Apple it is still up in the air and leaning towards not being a monopoly.
And they're using it to leverage their online music shop.
Yes they are and if they have a monopoly this is illegal and will have to be remedied.
Hell, they're even tying their cell phones to the itunes store.
So? They don't have a monopoly on cell phones or online music sales. They can tie those all they like.
What if I want to start a new online music store?!
Then a few years ago you were screwed because the DRM made that really really hard to do and compete with Apple. Now, with DRM going away it is less difficult, but it always going to be hard to go up against Apple who gets to bundle thier store with the most popular player on the market. I recommend partnering with a cell phone company.
The best strategy is not to try and interfere directly with any company's trade, but to mandate open data standards for all government contracts and subcontracts...
That's nonsense. What about markets where the government is not a purchaser? They still need antitrust laws to prevent them from being undermined. So now you want one set of laws to fix markets where the government is a purchaser and one for all other antitrust abuses? Isn't it simpler just to enforce the fricking law that has been working for a century already to protect competition?
That might create a level playing field.
Or it might not, but regardless we still need antitrust laws to protect innovation and consumers and they should be enforced equally for everyone.
Thanks. I really can't find the part that you reference, though.
Look at section 91.3.2 on page 226. That's the findings with regard to the embrace, extend, extinguish e-mails and comments. There are others, but that was the really well known and publicized one.
They didn't commit any crime. But honestly, doesn't this seem just a little bit like whining from the other companies? There are other ways Microsoft could and should be punished.
Reporting a criminal offense is whining now? Other ways of punishing, we don't even know how they plan on punishing MS, just speculation. But do tell, how would you restore competition such that all browsers will succeed or fail on their own merits while undoing the damage MS as done to the market and restoring innovation?
Again, it is not silly to punish them generally, it's just that this particular form of punishment is silly.
What particular punishment? Stopping them from gaining market share through bundling is the "stopping the crime" part of the solution.
As some have suggested, I think that breaking up Microsoft into smaller, less connected entities would work very well.
And if the US courts were less easily bribed, that is what would have happened, but it isn't a realistic option for the EU for diplomatic reasons. What should the EU do to solve this problem now that even US companies have started dealing with other US companies in their courts after realizing the US courts are ineffective?
Why should they provide competing products?
Why should thieves pay fines larger than what they stole? To help fix the problem including restoring things to the way they were.
Educating users about the benefits of open source project (and generally teaching them critical thinking, so that they can, for themselves, choose the better product) would give much better results. Microsoft created a large mess with their non-compliant browser and other bad software. However, it is the lack of knowledge and education of the users that's inadvertently supporting it. No one is stopping you to download an alternative browser as soon as you install the OS.
The free market operates on enlightened self interest. Everyone acts selfishly and it ends up benefitting everyone. Education is a part of that, but you are failing to understand how monopolies can undermine that. It is, right now, in the best self interests of many people to use IE. That's not a lack of education, they just need to be able to access their online banking. Companies need to be able to run WEb applications designed to only work with IE and that is currently in their own best interests. It's not that they're stupid. MS has built artificial problems with competing browsers by creating an ecosystem of noncompliant pages... and they did it intentionally not caring that it was holding back the Web and crushing progress.
Is this also Microsoft's fault?
Yes, since they planned it all out in advance, knowing it was criminal but counting on the courts to fail to be effective. You just want to prove them right.
Just to play the devil's advocate here a little bit. Let MSFT Do that, but also mandate that Mozilla, Opera, Sun and others offer downloads of IE, MS Office and other suites alongside their downloads.
Why, what crime did they commit?
Yes, Microsoft has created a monopoly, yes they broke the law, but this is just plain silly.
It's silly to make criminals stop breaking the law and to punish them?
Ubuntu comes with Firefox preinstalled, could you say that Mozilla has monopoly on most default Ubuntu installation, the kind average users usually go for?
If you think "default browser used on an obscure desktop OS with no market share" constitutes a monopoly in the economic or legal sense you need to gain a better understanding of what we're all talking about.
Firing up apt-get and downloading and installing new browser in Linux is not much simpler than firing up IE and downloading Opera, Firefox, Safari and others.. Just my 2 euro cents...
You seem to be failing to understand how monopolies undermine free trade and destroy innovation and why there are laws prohibiting such actions. Notice the state of Web technologies implemented on the Web and compare them to a decade ago. Isn't it strange how there has been so slow of progress in such an important and ubiquitous high tech industry. Do you think that is normal or desirable? Do you want it to continue to stagnate?
Yup, biased in favor of IE, since a requirement for inclusion was that it had to be broken in either Webkit or Gecko to get into the test so things that were only broken in IE were completely ignored.
Why should MS be forced to do anything other than make other browsers usable on their OS as the default browser. As far as I have seen this has been working for years.
If you call 70% of the population using the crappiest browser in existence and the entire Web being frozen using partially implemented versions of decade old technologies to be "working". The rest of us consider it to be broken and would like it fixed and the executives responsible fed to lions on live TV for holding back progress of humanity and technology for their own greedy purposes.
I think Microsoft does have that "right". Maybe not legally speaking, but the law does not always protect or cover rights, and sometimes works against them.
People have inherent rights. Corporations are legal entities created for the good of the people and have only the rights society gives them as a way to bring benefit to society.
The point here is that sometimes retailers have to play ball with manufacturers, sometimes to the benefit of consumers... sometimes more to the benefit of manufacturers, but, and you may be unfamiliar with the notion, nobody is entitled.
And just as we have laws to prevent meat from being mishandled and poisoning people we passed laws to prevent monopolies from undermining markets and destabilizing the economy and hurting innovation. Have you ever read up on why we have these laws and why pretty much every country in the world has them?
You said that MS should be forced to unbundle their calc and, as a reason, "there are other companies making better ones".
Yup, why should OEMs not include the best calculator app for people? Why should they include the MS one? Should they also have to include the MS video card instead of the best video card? How about the MS mouse instead of the best mouse? The MS LCD? No one is saying OEMs can't bundle MS's calculator or anything else, just that that decision should be independent of having to include MS's monopolized OS.
You say OEMs should be putting together the software packages but MS is the one who makes the product and may consider some parts "core" for obvious reasons--one, consumers may expect certain functionality be "just there" and may blame them for it
If consumers don't like the package they get from an OEM they can go with a different OEM that provides something better. This is called "competition" and is the cornerstone of the capitalist free market.
wo, for customer service reasons MS may want certain things
So? For customer service reasons I may want to include certain things on Dell computers. That doesn't give me a right to force Dell to do it. Just because MS has a desktop OS monopoly they should be able to force OEMs to include other things? That is anti-capitalism.
...three, MS may simply want to include functionality as it's better for them in the end, and there's nothing wrong with that.
Fine, let them convince OEMs that they should include those things independent of the OEMs decision to include Windows. If it is better for end users, those OEMs will do better. If it is worse, those OEMs will do worse. That's the free market.
Customers have a choice between Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, and a few others.
The CEO of Dell has no choice. If he tells MS he's not shipping Windows on his computers anymore he'll be fired tomorrow and the same goes for the CEO of every major PC OEM except Apple. They have no realistic choice and MS has them by the balls and knows it.
If they don't like their choices, well, nobody ever guaranteed them their perfect OS!
This isn't about the OS. This is about making them take other things to get the OS.
For whatever reason customers keep CHOOSING Windows, they do, and MS's majority marketshare does not take away from the fact that competition does exist and that people simply aren't choosing it. Handicapping Windows to suit YOUR choice hoping people use software you want them to use, whether it be Firefox or Linux, is not a very good answer.
For the last time, this isn't handicapping Windows. It's leaving Windows alone and forcing MS to compete for market share with all their other products instead of breaking the law. Do you not understand how bundling undermines the market?
Stopping the bundling of a browser with the OS and telling people to download one with FTP does cripple the OS.
Umm, sure, but can you show me one regulator who suggested any such thing? Even MS's intentional doomsaying PR doesn't go that far.
The use FTP argument is bogus anyway. What's to stop Filezilla from demanding that Microsoft remove their FTP client?
Who cares if they did? Dell will just add one into the bundles they sell and all the do it yourself-ers already burn CDs with their most used software on it.
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The problem is not so much bundling, as the impossibility to unbundle e.g. WMP and IE.
Legally speaking, that isn't true.
I do think, even as a Good European, that the EU would not be doing this if MS were French.
They convicted Telfonica of illegal bundling in violation of antitrust laws, and Telfonica is Spanish.
Actually, that is entirely untrue. You should go look up the legal definition of 'bundling' in antitrust, because you have it wrong.
I have it right and you obviously don't know what you're talking about. Do you even understand what antitrust laws are supposed to be preventing? I'll give you a hint, it isn't preventing companies from making money by offering better products.
Go, read, learn, come back. Heck, read the post I made right after this thread and see why the bundling is the illegal part in the example I showed.
Lets say that they do get Microsoft to actually do some proper programming and separate out IE from Windows so that it can be uninstalled in such a way that the OS can go about it's business. Furthermore, lets say that they even get Microsoft to develop a wizard during installation that lets a Joe Sixpack choose from a list of browsers to install. Is this going to make ANY difference to Joe Sixpack or is he still just going to install the first one on the list (which would probably be IE... fair enough since it is Microsoft's OS and they're obviously going to be a bit bias here)? If the average user is confronted with a choice of browsers, are any of them going to know enough about the choices to make an informed decision?
It will make a difference, the question is how much of a difference. Probably not a lot, which is why that proposed solution is not a very good remedy by itself. In fact, it would be more effective to require multiple browsers be installed by default than it would be to have a one time installer. Better yet (from a market perspective) would be requiring multiple browsers and a mechanism for Web developers to launch other Web browsers from within IE (although there are numerous practical and security problems with such a solution).
Any real solution will have to be in multiple parts, to motivate Web developers to target standards, to motivate MS to target standards, to motivate users to choose the best browser for their needs. The free market has been broken long time and most people simply assume it is working anyway. A lot needs to be fixed in order for it to function effectively again and a one time browser installation option, is not going to be close to enough on its own.
is this a little one sided?
No.
ive never had a mac so i wouldnt know for sure, but i would assume that OSX or leopard or whatever its called bundles something
They bundle lots of things. But bundling, in general, is not what MS is being charged with. They're being charged with undermining markets, bundling just happens to be the mechanism.
Analogy. Bob fires a gun into Tom and kills him. Bob is arrested for murder. Jake fires a gun into a target and wins the olympics. Jake is not arrested for murder. Is that one-sided, or is it that firing a gun is not illegal, while murder is?
Safari is bundled with OS X, as are a lot of utility programs. However, you can easily download and install another browser and delete the safari.app file from your /Applications folder. Then you can run System Preferences and set your default browser, if the browser itself hasn't already done so.
None of this is important to antitrust abuse.
And anyway, Apple has not been found guilty of violating the Sherman Act. Microsoft has, therefore different rules apply to them.
No, the same laws apply to both companies. The case against MS, however is made simpler because most of the findings of fact are done and because MS is a repeat offender. Apple can bundle anything they want with OS X or Safari because that does not constitute antitrust abuse. You have to be leveraging monopoly influence through bundling, i.e. one of the bundled products has to constitute a monopoly. Neither Safari nor OS X is monopoly in the legal or economic sense.
Look, Microsoft broke the law when they told OEMs they couldn't bundle other web browsers. Now everyone and their mother, including you, is upset at Microsoft for bundling their browser with the OS. But bundling isn't illegal unless it is anticompetitive, e.g., telling the OEMs they can't bundle an additional browser.
Your assertion that telling OEMs they can't bundle other browsers is the only thing that would be illegal is absurd. That's not even important. Simply making IE bundled, even if they allowed OEMs to remove it is still an antitrust abuse. Anything that gives them an advantage their competitors cannot replicate because of the Windows monopoly is an antitrust abuse. Antitrust abuse is leveraging one (monopolized)market into another market. They have to keep Windows separate from other markets they enter and it is MS's responsibility to insure that happens. A responsible company would ship Windows and IE on separate disks to OEMs and have different branches of the company and different individuals contacting said OEM about including them.
If I install Ubuntu I get the fucking kitchen sink. I get so much more software than when I install Windows it isn't even funny. How is that not anticompetitive?
Jesus Christ on a Segway! Please go learn what the hell a trust is and then how they can be abused to undermine other markets. If you'd bother to educate yourself even a little on this topic you'll see the answer to your question is obvious. Ubuntu does not constitute a monopoly on anything and thus cannot be leveraged to undermine anything. Your question is like asking why one person is arrested for murder just because they fired a gun, when another person fired a gun and was given a silver medal at the olympics. You have to completely misunderstand murder laws to even ask such a question, just as you completely fail to understand antitrust laws. I'm not going over it again. Go find out what the laws are and why they exist and come back. I'm not even reading the rest of your post.
We seem to have an egg and the chicken problem here. Which appeared first? The Web in general and websites, or in this particular case, IE?
That's not a problem at all. MS was late to the internet game and I was browsing standards compliant Websites with Mosaic before MS even had a TCP/IP engine in Windows.
What is stopping those banks to make their websites standards compliant? I know that the majority of their users, almost all of them, are using IE. But if the banks in the first place coded their sites to be standards compliant, we would not be in this situation.
MS's bundling combined with breaking standards made it economically in the bank's best interest to code the way they did at the time. That action, was blatantly illegal, so MS is responsible for the results of that crime and should be the sole entity that bears the cost for fixing the problem.
Ditto for the rest of the web. Laziness of web developers attributed to a great extent to Microsoft's current position as a monopoly.
If you have a hard job, give it to a lazy person. They'll find an easier way to do it. Capitalism exploits the laziness and greed and self interest of people to build an economy that gives us better products, cheaper. It's a long solved problem. The problem we have here is one company broke the law an undermined capitalism such that human nature instead brought them profit while bringing everyone else worse products at higher costs. Why do you think we have capitalism in the first place? It's not because it is more moral, but because it works.
No reporting a crime is not whining, but demanding they provide your products alongside theirs is.
Opera did not demand any specific solution. They reported a crime and then told the authorities what damage had been done to them.
As I have stated earlier, education goes a long way.
Education does not trump self interest. People generally do what is best for them, not society. MS has broken the law so that what benefits them immediately is no longer working in the interests of society as well. Web developers in particular aren't stupid, they're pragmatic.
Look at Firefox. It is steadily eating away IE's market share, and users are each they more and more aware of the alternatives.
Yeah, a product obviously superior which has been obviously superior for many years is slowly gaining some share but is still way behind the inferior product. That's your support for not enforcing the law?
Sometimes it is impossible to restore things to the way they were.
Sure, but that isn't the case and MS should be held responsible for the foreseeable consequences of their actions. A decade ago they said they were going to bundle IE and use that to break standards on the Web. They did that. If they have to sell off all the company's assets to other companies and use the profits to fix the problem, then that is what should be done. Rewarding criminals because the damage they cause is too large makes no sense.
A large enough fine in this case and an order to behave in the future is more appropriate in this case.
What fine is large enough to stop them. We're looking at a company that is breaking the law to secure a monopoly on the platform virtually all software runs on. They have been given huge fines and simply kept on breaking the law. They haven't even stopped bundling IE or followed the suggestions of standards bodies. What, exactly, do you think would make them change?
Put it this way - if you created a product (think time and money) for sale so you cuold make profit - how would you feel if someone came up to you and said "No sorry, you need to invest more time and money and configure your product the way *I* want it, not how you want it.
We have this thing called "rule by law" where we write laws that all companies and people are expected to obey. That way, companies are not surprised. They know the laws in advance and can reasonably expect those laws will be enforced. The problem here is not that the government is suddenly changing the rules. antitrust laws have been on the books for a hundred years.
No, the surprising thing here is that one company broke the law to drive other companies out of business, and that law was not effectively enforced. A good analogy would be a law that says you can't go rob liquor stores with a gun and if you do you go to prison and can't own a gun (the means of your crime) for the rest of your life. So some guy goes and robs a liquor store, and when he's dragged into court he donates half the money to the judge and sheriff's re-election fund. Then they decide to waive the jail time and let him keep his gun. He then goes on a robbery spree, and continues his donations. He gets sued and loses, but the settlement is less money than he's making as a robber. He gets arrested in Germany, but they give him a warning and ship him back to the states. The robber shopkeepers complain, but he takes out ads in the paper calling them whiners and says they are suing him about a wage dispute, when he really just robber them. He pays a few people to spread word of mouth and write editorials about how people are unfairly picking on him, saying he shouldn't be able to own a gun, when other people own guns.
MS broke the law and they knew the law before they did it. They're still breaking the law. It's hurting legitimate businesses, costing us money, and slowing innovation so we have worse products and services. There was no surprise for MS, just for legitimate businesses who stupidly though our courts were not so easily bribed and that the law might be enforced effectively.
Either you can bundle whatever you want or you shouldn't be able to bundle anything.
Either you can fire a firearm at whatever you want or you shouldn't be able to fire firearm at anything.
Yeah ignoring the results of actions and writing laws that prevent actions that cause negative results instead of just banning actions. Brilliant!
So what's next? I think freecell has a monopoly.
Your lack of information and understanding is astonishing. You managed to completely misunderstand antitrust law or the reasons behind it. The funny thing is, I don't think MS should be bundling freecell, but that is not because "freecell is monopoly" Windows is a monopoly. Because of that power, MS can break other markets (like Web browsers or solitaire games) and consumers suffer. Products are worse, costs passed on are higher, and innovation is slowed or stopped. Please go learn what antitrust law is about and why it was written then come back and comment from an educated perspective.
We should file anti-trust suits against... Ford, Chrysler, and GM since they're obviously using closed standards and preventing their customers from being able to use competitor's parts...
Yes and since each of those companies has a monopoly on cars (thus the influence to be a trust) they are obviously undermining the market and abusing that trust so antitrust law applies.
.. Seriously, let Microsoft do their thing.
I'll consider taking your advice on economics when you understand the meaning of all the words you use. Seriously, learn what 'antitrust' means before presuming to advise people about laws regarding trusts.
Look it's another antitrust story about Microsoft! Look it's already filled with dozens of comments by people who don't know what antitrust abuse is. Seriously people, you're making Slashdot look as ignorant as other Web forums. Don't people think it might be a good idea to know what they're talking about before telling us what they think about it?
Antitrust abuse is undermining free trade in a market using the large amount of influence a company or group has in a separate market. Antitrust laws were made because trusts discovered they could undermine capitalism by tying markets they controlled to markets they did not and then they did not have to work hard and spend money to make the best product in the second market; they could dominate it with an inferior product that did not cost them to produce. This also resulted in them having little or no motivation to please customers, improve that product, or reduce costs... undermining all the important benefits we were gaining from capitalism in the first place. Without antitrust laws, capitalism collapses into a series of competing monopolists, which is why pretty much every country around the world implemented very similar antitrust laws, which have stabilized economies and prevented the worst abuses.
Example: How to abuse a monopoly. Suppose I gain a monopoly or trust. It doesn't matter how. Say I contract with a city to lay the wires that distribute electricity. Fine, this is a common monopoly scenario in the US. Now suppose I decide I want to move into a new market, like selling bottled water. Legally, antitrust law says because water is a separate pre-existing market, I cannot tie those two markets together. The most common form of illegal tying is bundling. Suppose I start shipping every one of my electrical distribution customers a "free" case of bottled water every month. The vast majority of sellers of bottled water go out of business, because everyone already has bottled water. This is both unfair and destabilizes the market by driving good companies out of business without having a better product. Then, I slowly raise the price of electrical power distribution to cover my expense in purchasing and distributing bottled water. What if my water is not as good and tastes slightly off? What if the bottles are non-recyclable? What if it costs me more than it did previous companies and I'm passing on higher costs to you?
In capitalism all those problems are solved by the market. I'm motivated to solve them because it will make my bottled water more attractive and get me more sales. With monopoly abuse, I have no motivation to solve those problems. If people want electricity in their houses they will buy my bottled water, so who cares if it sucks and is overpriced? What can they do?
I'll tell you what they can do. They can pass criminal laws that make such bundling illegal. If you tie a product in a market where you have a huge amount of influence (either as a company or a cartel) to a separate pre-existing market, you are breaking the law. That law makes a lot of sense and has stabilized our economy an insured competition. A lot of people have proposed solutions other than antitrust law, that would let some currently illegal bundling continue and try to solve the problem in a different way, basically trying to solve a specific case by writing laws to cover that case instead of general laws that cover all cases. I think that is a myopic view and misguided.
So what did MS do? They took a product (Windows) where they had huge influence on the market and bundled numerous other products with it. These are products from separate pre-existing markets. When they did it, they knew it was breaking the law, but they figured they'd make enough money to buy their way out of trouble. They paid off companies with enough money to sue them successfully. They made huge campaign contributions to the people who were supposed to be enforcing the laws. They spent large amounts of money on misinformation campaigns to confuse people about the law and spread mi
You mean the fricking law which prevented one firm gaining almost total domination of the desktop operating systems market, and then leveraging that to take over the office productivity, web browser and other key markets?
The law itself is fine. What didn't work was the US court system which was blatantly bribed and undermined by the new administration of corrupt scumbags.
True - all the firms that are sure they don't want to sell to government, military, education, healthcare (EU, remember), get money from EU development grants or otherwise nibble a slice of government pork, file tax returns, access government websites or do business with anyone else who wants to do these things will be able to ignore this completely. But, you never know, it might have some small influence on the market.
What are you talking about? If someone undermines the market for soda pop, not selling to the government is not huge deal and if they want to do business with the government, what are you proposing they have to do? Your plan makes no sense at all outside the context of the software services market. Admit it, you didn't think your idea through.
Until you remove the big lock in - proprietary file formats and protocols - any attempt to break up IT format monopolies will be pissing in the wind because non-slashdot-community customers will voluntarily choose the software that reliably opens their files.
Those are significant concerns and I believe the government should enforce their use for any interactions with said government, but it doesn't solve antitrust abuses by itself, especially in markets that don't have anything to do with file formats or protocols.
...and, politically, "ensuring file interoperability for future generations" sounds like an easier sell than singling out one, successful (foreign) company and going mediaeval on their arse.
Singling out one company? You actually believe that nonsense MS has paid people to repeat? The EU has convicted many companies of antitrust abuses over the years, most of them european ones. They been incredibly lenient with MS because of the diplomatic issue. Anything the EU does will sound terrible if you just parrot MS's PR department.
We are talking about software here, not robbery.
No we're talking about antitrust abuse not robbery, but both are criminal code violations.
Microsoft doesn't need to be punished for past crimes.
Past crimes? They're still doing it. It is an ongoing crime and there is no statute of limitations for antitrust abuse I've ever heard of.
Microsoft needs to be controlled and very tightly regulated, and other vendors should be given the exact same chances. Thus, no PCs should be sold with Windows installed.
You seem confused. This isn't about punishing MS for having a monopoly. That is legal. This is about punishing MS for abusing their monopoly into other markets. Their sale with computer systems is perfectly legal and what right does the government have to tell Dell what items they can bundle together if Dell is not breaking any laws?
The user will have to buy, steal, borrow or download that separately.
How is that helpful in any way? What problem are you trying to solve with this and who do you think it would help?
The solution they're describing isn't really going far enough, because in a sense it transforms a monopoly into a cartel, with members chosen by the EU.
A cartel would have to be collaborating together to hurt consumers and profit, but MS's best interests and methods of profit do not coincide with those of the other companies producing browsers. Firefox wants to promote open standards as a charity, Google wants a capable browser so they can sell services, Apple wants to make money on their own services and Opera wants standards so they have sell work to do for selling their browser to mobile device makers.
Well, John T Trustbuster, I'm confused then. Apple has a huge percent, surely monopoly-level, of the DAP market.
That's not sure at all. It's sure MS has one because the courts have already ruled it does. In making that determination they looked at what MS's customers could choose as alternatives. If Dell wants to include and OS on the systems they sell what are their options and what do they consider. Mostly they just have Windows and Linux and Linux has no real market share. OS X is not counted because Apple doesn't license it for that market so Dell can't choose it.
So what does an EU citizen looking to purchase a digital audio player consider? Do they consider media capable cell phones? If so, Apple does not have a monopoly and their share is less than 50%. If not, Apple has a little over 70% and does have monopoly influence. In the EU, where there are laws preventing cell phone locking to providers, customers probably do consider phones and Apple will be ruled to not have monopoly influence. This has been under investigation for over a year now.
So basically, with MS, it is clear cut, but with Apple it is still up in the air and leaning towards not being a monopoly.
And they're using it to leverage their online music shop.
Yes they are and if they have a monopoly this is illegal and will have to be remedied.
Hell, they're even tying their cell phones to the itunes store.
So? They don't have a monopoly on cell phones or online music sales. They can tie those all they like.
What if I want to start a new online music store?!
Then a few years ago you were screwed because the DRM made that really really hard to do and compete with Apple. Now, with DRM going away it is less difficult, but it always going to be hard to go up against Apple who gets to bundle thier store with the most popular player on the market. I recommend partnering with a cell phone company.
The best strategy is not to try and interfere directly with any company's trade, but to mandate open data standards for all government contracts and subcontracts...
That's nonsense. What about markets where the government is not a purchaser? They still need antitrust laws to prevent them from being undermined. So now you want one set of laws to fix markets where the government is a purchaser and one for all other antitrust abuses? Isn't it simpler just to enforce the fricking law that has been working for a century already to protect competition?
That might create a level playing field.
Or it might not, but regardless we still need antitrust laws to protect innovation and consumers and they should be enforced equally for everyone.
Thanks. I really can't find the part that you reference, though.
Look at section 91.3.2 on page 226. That's the findings with regard to the embrace, extend, extinguish e-mails and comments. There are others, but that was the really well known and publicized one.
They didn't commit any crime. But honestly, doesn't this seem just a little bit like whining from the other companies? There are other ways Microsoft could and should be punished.
Reporting a criminal offense is whining now? Other ways of punishing, we don't even know how they plan on punishing MS, just speculation. But do tell, how would you restore competition such that all browsers will succeed or fail on their own merits while undoing the damage MS as done to the market and restoring innovation?
Again, it is not silly to punish them generally, it's just that this particular form of punishment is silly.
What particular punishment? Stopping them from gaining market share through bundling is the "stopping the crime" part of the solution.
As some have suggested, I think that breaking up Microsoft into smaller, less connected entities would work very well.
And if the US courts were less easily bribed, that is what would have happened, but it isn't a realistic option for the EU for diplomatic reasons. What should the EU do to solve this problem now that even US companies have started dealing with other US companies in their courts after realizing the US courts are ineffective?
Why should they provide competing products?
Why should thieves pay fines larger than what they stole? To help fix the problem including restoring things to the way they were.
Educating users about the benefits of open source project (and generally teaching them critical thinking, so that they can, for themselves, choose the better product) would give much better results. Microsoft created a large mess with their non-compliant browser and other bad software. However, it is the lack of knowledge and education of the users that's inadvertently supporting it. No one is stopping you to download an alternative browser as soon as you install the OS.
The free market operates on enlightened self interest. Everyone acts selfishly and it ends up benefitting everyone. Education is a part of that, but you are failing to understand how monopolies can undermine that. It is, right now, in the best self interests of many people to use IE. That's not a lack of education, they just need to be able to access their online banking. Companies need to be able to run WEb applications designed to only work with IE and that is currently in their own best interests. It's not that they're stupid. MS has built artificial problems with competing browsers by creating an ecosystem of noncompliant pages... and they did it intentionally not caring that it was holding back the Web and crushing progress.
Is this also Microsoft's fault?
Yes, since they planned it all out in advance, knowing it was criminal but counting on the courts to fail to be effective. You just want to prove them right.
Just to play the devil's advocate here a little bit. Let MSFT Do that, but also mandate that Mozilla, Opera, Sun and others offer downloads of IE, MS Office and other suites alongside their downloads.
Why, what crime did they commit?
Yes, Microsoft has created a monopoly, yes they broke the law, but this is just plain silly.
It's silly to make criminals stop breaking the law and to punish them?
Ubuntu comes with Firefox preinstalled, could you say that Mozilla has monopoly on most default Ubuntu installation, the kind average users usually go for?
If you think "default browser used on an obscure desktop OS with no market share" constitutes a monopoly in the economic or legal sense you need to gain a better understanding of what we're all talking about.
Firing up apt-get and downloading and installing new browser in Linux is not much simpler than firing up IE and downloading Opera, Firefox, Safari and others.. Just my 2 euro cents...
You seem to be failing to understand how monopolies undermine free trade and destroy innovation and why there are laws prohibiting such actions. Notice the state of Web technologies implemented on the Web and compare them to a decade ago. Isn't it strange how there has been so slow of progress in such an important and ubiquitous high tech industry. Do you think that is normal or desirable? Do you want it to continue to stagnate?
Every time this comes up a decent percentage of people suggest it
Yeah, clueless people or people trolling. The question is, why would you believe it and repeat it?
The tests are incredibly biased.
Yup, biased in favor of IE, since a requirement for inclusion was that it had to be broken in either Webkit or Gecko to get into the test so things that were only broken in IE were completely ignored.
Why should MS be forced to do anything other than make other browsers usable on their OS as the default browser. As far as I have seen this has been working for years.
If you call 70% of the population using the crappiest browser in existence and the entire Web being frozen using partially implemented versions of decade old technologies to be "working". The rest of us consider it to be broken and would like it fixed and the executives responsible fed to lions on live TV for holding back progress of humanity and technology for their own greedy purposes.
I think Microsoft does have that "right". Maybe not legally speaking, but the law does not always protect or cover rights, and sometimes works against them.
People have inherent rights. Corporations are legal entities created for the good of the people and have only the rights society gives them as a way to bring benefit to society.
The point here is that sometimes retailers have to play ball with manufacturers, sometimes to the benefit of consumers... sometimes more to the benefit of manufacturers, but, and you may be unfamiliar with the notion, nobody is entitled.
And just as we have laws to prevent meat from being mishandled and poisoning people we passed laws to prevent monopolies from undermining markets and destabilizing the economy and hurting innovation. Have you ever read up on why we have these laws and why pretty much every country in the world has them?
You said that MS should be forced to unbundle their calc and, as a reason, "there are other companies making better ones".
Yup, why should OEMs not include the best calculator app for people? Why should they include the MS one? Should they also have to include the MS video card instead of the best video card? How about the MS mouse instead of the best mouse? The MS LCD? No one is saying OEMs can't bundle MS's calculator or anything else, just that that decision should be independent of having to include MS's monopolized OS.
You say OEMs should be putting together the software packages but MS is the one who makes the product and may consider some parts "core" for obvious reasons--one, consumers may expect certain functionality be "just there" and may blame them for it
If consumers don't like the package they get from an OEM they can go with a different OEM that provides something better. This is called "competition" and is the cornerstone of the capitalist free market.
wo, for customer service reasons MS may want certain things
So? For customer service reasons I may want to include certain things on Dell computers. That doesn't give me a right to force Dell to do it. Just because MS has a desktop OS monopoly they should be able to force OEMs to include other things? That is anti-capitalism.
...three, MS may simply want to include functionality as it's better for them in the end, and there's nothing wrong with that.
Fine, let them convince OEMs that they should include those things independent of the OEMs decision to include Windows. If it is better for end users, those OEMs will do better. If it is worse, those OEMs will do worse. That's the free market.
Customers have a choice between Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, and a few others.
The CEO of Dell has no choice. If he tells MS he's not shipping Windows on his computers anymore he'll be fired tomorrow and the same goes for the CEO of every major PC OEM except Apple. They have no realistic choice and MS has them by the balls and knows it.
If they don't like their choices, well, nobody ever guaranteed them their perfect OS!
This isn't about the OS. This is about making them take other things to get the OS.
For whatever reason customers keep CHOOSING Windows, they do, and MS's majority marketshare does not take away from the fact that competition does exist and that people simply aren't choosing it. Handicapping Windows to suit YOUR choice hoping people use software you want them to use, whether it be Firefox or Linux, is not a very good answer.
For the last time, this isn't handicapping Windows. It's leaving Windows alone and forcing MS to compete for market share with all their other products instead of breaking the law. Do you not understand how bundling undermines the market?
Can you point me to a source where leaked internal Microsoft documents called for the web to be crippled? Thanks.
Sure. The most famous was the embrace, extend, extinguish memos from Maritz revealed during the first antitrust trial:
Findings of fact as a PDF
They talk more generally about it as well in the Halloween documents, with regard to technologies in Linux, rather than the Web specifically.
Stopping the bundling of a browser with the OS and telling people to download one with FTP does cripple the OS.
Umm, sure, but can you show me one regulator who suggested any such thing? Even MS's intentional doomsaying PR doesn't go that far.
The use FTP argument is bogus anyway. What's to stop Filezilla from demanding that Microsoft remove their FTP client?
Who cares if they did? Dell will just add one into the bundles they sell and all the do it yourself-ers already burn CDs with their most used software on it.