EU Rules Against Microsoft

[TheStinger]

The EU is not liberal in the sense that Adam Smith meant it is liberal in the sense of the US meaning of regualtion etc.

They are ok on competition but bloody stupid on subsidies in agriculture and standard regulations for harmanisation

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
What's wrong with a monopoly on a free product, anyway?

If for instance the product is IE.

[Ned]

Microsoft's bundling of application software with it OS limits competition both in OS's and in application software. This is kinda obvious, is it not.

When one asks whether this is good for any reason, the answer must be no if one actually believes that it is competition that fosters innovation.

The Microsoft monopoly will continue indefinitely until and unless a US court rules that it should be broken up. The only reason it wasn't this time is because of the bizzare out of court comments of the trial judge in the US case.

[aneeshm]

Typically , my comment about the ridiculousness of the law , when it applies to Linux , was ignored . Pray tell me again , UR , your answer to the fact that now Linux companies which develop their own distros are to be forced to drop bundled applications if the law is to be applied consistently .

[aneeshm]

Come on , answer the question !

[Agathon]

The problem is Microsoft's position in the market. That means that the rules that apply to them need not necessarily apply to others. There's no fatal inconsistency in that. To say there is, is to ignore the context (much like when right wingers describe affirmative action as racist).

Given that most software distributed with Linux distros is GPLed or some variant of that, there's no anticompetitive problem there either.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Asher
The US courts, which have considerable more weight in the world than the EU courts, have disagreed with your and the EU's interpretation, and found no fault with MS bundling services such as IE and WMP.

You're incorrect. The US anti-trust law (the Sherman Anti-Trust Act) does not prohibit having a monopoly in any single market sector. What it is against is leveraging such a monopoly in one market to gain dominance in another, which was exactly what the DoJ case was (orginally) about.

Originally posted by Asher
The fact that the European Union has some very, very questionable logic and reasoning doesn't really matter much to anyone but Europeans themselves.

So it's bad if they are for leveling the playing field? How bizzare.

Originally posted by Asher
This whole court case was a huge waste of time and money, something I gather the EU is getting rather good at...

That's funny, particularly in light of Microsoft's recent threat of patent lawsuits against FOSS.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by aneeshm
Typically , my comment about the ridiculousness of the law , when it applies to Linux , was ignored .

The first question is how would an anti-trust law be applicable to FOSS?

[Heresson]

EU Rules Against Microsoft

I guess it's the only time anyone could ever say "EU rules"

[Adam Smith]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
You're incorrect. The US anti-trust law (the Sherman Anti-Trust Act) does not prohibit having a monopoly in any single market sector. What it is against is leveraging such a monopoly in one market to gain dominance in another, which was exactly what the DoJ case was (orginally) about.

Not quite. Section 2 of the Sherman Act reads as follows.

Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, shall be deemed guilty of a felony, and, on conviction thereof, shall be punished by fine not exceeding $10,000,000 if a corporation, or, if any other person, $350,000, or by imprisonment not exceeding three years, or by both said punishments, in the discretion of the court.

http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/foia/divisionmanual/ch2.htm#a1

DOJ did not charge MS with monopolizing the OS market. In order to do so, DOJ would have had to show first that MS had a monopoly, and second, under the "rule of reason" would have had to show that the OS monopoly resulted from anticompetitive tactics, not from economic efficiencies. DOJ was not sure that they could win an argument that MS OS monopoly resulted in little or no efficiencies for users.

Instead, DOJ argued that MS engaged in attempted monopolization of the browser market. Using this approach DOJ did not have to worry about winning an efficiency argument, since attempted monopolization is per se illegal. DOJ won the case, but apparently worried that there was a significant chance they would either lose on appeal, or that the appeal would take so long that the damage would be irreversable. In my opinion DOJ should have insisted on a stronger remedy (something like what the EU decided) and took their chances on an expedited appeal.

ps: I conducted economic analysis of antitrust cases in a previous life.

[Urban Ranger]

Thanks fot the info

[Agathon]

The first question is how would an anti-trust law be applicable to FOSS?

Yeah. To think that it would be is absurd.