10.17.12
Microsoft Lobbying and Political Corruption in Europe
Also see: Details of Microsoft's Lobbying in Europe
Summary: Action against punishment for Microsoft crimes and for software patents in Europe (through FRAND)
A former Microsoft employee, Zack Whittaker, continues to wear a ‘reporter’ hat and cover legal stories about his former employee, without disclosures of course. He has helped daemonise the regulators and whitewash his former employer for quite some time. Here is his latest:
Microsoft is reportedly only days away from receiving a formal antitrust complaint after the software giant left out its required ‘browser choice’ screen to 28 million users. Record fines loom not far away.
Notice the scare quotes among other things. We covered this whole subject before in, e.g.:
- Cablegate: European Commission Worried About Microsoft’s Browser Ballot Screen Being Inappropriate
- Microsoft’s Browser Ballot is Broken Again and Internet Explorer 8 is Critically Flawed
- Microsoft’s Ballot Screen is a Farce, Decoy
- A Ballot Screen is Not Justice, Internet Explorer Still Compromises Users’ PCs
- Microsoft Not Only Broke the Law in Europe, So Browser Ballot Should Become International
- Browser Ballot Critique
- Microsoft’s Fake “Choice” Campaign is Back
- Microsoft Claimed to be Cheating in Web Browsers Ballot
- Microsoft Loses Impact in the Web Despite Unfair Ballot Placements
- Given Choice, Customers Reject Microsoft
- Microsoft is Still Cheating in Browser Ballot — Claim
- Microsoft Does Not Obey the Law
Glyn Moody realises that lobbying from Microsoft et al. has extended further at the Commission, also contributing to software patents promotion in the EU. We showed it the other day. Moody writes:
Long-suffering readers may recall that the issue of FRAND licensing in the context of open standards cropped up quite a lot this year. We still don’t know what the final outcome of the UK consultation on open standards will be, but whatever happens there, we can be sure that FRAND will remain one of the hot topics.
That’s because proprietary companies are using it as a last-ditch attempt to subvert open standards by allowing encumbered technologies to be included. That is, the standards may be “open”, but they certainly aren’t open, since you will need a licence from companies to use them. The theory is that FRAND makes this all sweetness and light, but current arguments prove exactly the contrary: what is “fair” and “reasonable” is completely undefined, and therefore inevitably subjective. There’s only one way for such subjective issues to be resolved, and that’s in the courts.
The FRAND lobby seems to have been busy in Europe.
In our own government and alleged ‘news’ papers there are Microsoft moles. They do not reveal their affiliations (some fake them). Just something to bear in mind… █
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