The conflict between Microsoft and the Rest of the World, this time represented by the widely loved if somewhat cultish Opera Browser, is being played out int the EU. Opera Software ASA has filed a complaint with the European Commission asking regulators to force Microsoft to allow users a choice of Internet software to use with it’s operating system.Oper also alleges that MS was stifling developing efforts in the area of interooperability by not following accepted web standards. Microsoft did not comment.
Norway-based Opera said it was asking EU regulators to apply the principles of their landmark antitrust ruling against Microsoft – upheld by an EU court in September – to Internet software.That ruling required Microsoft to market a version of Windows without its media player program, even though there were few takers when it went on sale a year after the antitrust order.Opera claimed Microsoft was abusing its monopoly power as the supplier of software to most of the world’s personal computers by giving away its Internet Explorer with Windows and not offering alternative programs.It “requests the Commission to obligate Microsoft to unbundle Internet Explorer from Windows and/or carry alternative browsers preinstalled on the desktop,” it said in a statement.[source]
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Now that it’s been shown antitrust violations are, unlike in America, actually illegal in Europe, the world has become a much more interesting place…I wonder if monopoly abuse will become illegal in America as well again, if a Democrat becomes president soon.