Bonum Certa Men Certa

Microsoft is Once Again Getting Away With Browser Competition Crimes (This Time in Europe)

These are Microsoft's own words (click to see the original PDF):

Microsoft dirty tactics



Summary: Just as in the case of privacy and standards (or interoperability), Microsoft pretends that its bad behaviour can be combated by creation of mere publicity stunts, this time a so-called 'antitrust compliance office'

Microsoft has a long history of competition crimes when it comes to Web browsers. The uninitiated should read the Netscape case petition (included in Comes vs Microsoft case) and maybe recall some articles we wrote some years ago, such as:





Microsoft's excuses at the time were remarkable. Nowadays, at work, I am seeing more and more sites that 'break' due to Microsoft's 'new' and 'improved' browsers, which mostly mean that a lot of Web developers need to find new hacks and 'adapt' to bugs in Internet Explorer and its attempted rebrand, "Edge" (total rubbish based on what I've been hearing). It's the same old Microsoft, begging for attention even by openwashing its proprietary browser (by publishing code of some small pieces of it) and rebranding, changing the logo just a mild little bit. How else to get attention? Pretense of security.

"Microsoft has a long history of competition crimes when it comes to Web browsers.""MICROSOFT is giving Internet Explorer users a few weeks to upgrade their browser or become vulnerable to cyber attacks," says this nonsensical article. Prior to it we saw even Microsoft Zack spreading the same kind of Microsoft nonsense. It's truly nonsense as everyone who currently uses Windows is permanently exposed. Security is not the goal at all. Microsoft tells spies how to crack Windows before even patching flaws (and some consciously remain unpatched for many months if not years). Microsoft's marketing people are putting their browser in the headlines again, using lame excuses.

“It's not over until after the furniture is sold and the former employees fined as well.”
      --iophk
Microsoft, based on this new report, gets away with competition crimes again, appeasing people who lost from this behaviour, having just come up with the "antitrust compliance office" PR.

To quote IDG: "Microsoft on Friday told shareholders that it has settled a lawsuit brought last year against former CEOs Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates, the company's board of directors and other top executives over a $732 million fine that European Union antitrust regulators slapped on the firm in 2013.

"As part of the settlement, Microsoft will set aside $42.5 million to fund an antitrust compliance office for the next five years, and pay the plaintiffs' lawyers at least $7.3 million, according to court documents and a Friday filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)."

Here is a good part of the article, serving to show Microsoft's rather unique attitude:

EU regulators were not amused, and fined Microsoft to the tune of $732 million. "This is the first time we have seen a breech of a legally binding commitment," said Joaquin Almunia, then the European Commission's top antitrust official, in March 2013 when he announced the fine. "This is, of course, serious, whether it was intentional or not."


Our reader iophk said: "It's not over until after the furniture is sold and the former employees fined as well." Well, companies like Microsoft -- much like the EPO -- believe they are above the law and act accordingly.

"Life -- the way it really is -- is a battle not between bad and good but between bad and worse."

--Joseph Brodsky

Recent Techrights' Posts

Microsoft Windows Fell to All-Time Lows in Egypt This Summer, Vista 11 Adoption Decreases While GNU/Linux Increases
Vista 11 is going down rather than up
12 Hours Ago The Register MS Published a Fake (Paid-for) Article, But This One for a Change Did Not Promote a Ponzi Scheme
There are also Free software alternatives, but they don't pay The Register MS for "synthetic" so-called 'journalism'
 
Open Source Initiative (OSI) Resists Software Freedom, Even by Attacking Its Own
The OSI is compromised
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, August 27, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, August 27, 2025
Slopwatch: linuxsecurity.com, Slopfarms in Google News, and More
Some readers of ours end up sending us links that are from slopfarms, not realising those are slopfarms
Gemini Links 27/08/2025: Katrina Memories and Google Versus Software Freedom
Links for the day
Links 27/08/2025: Police Against Media Freedom in the UK, Energy-Hungry Countries Targeted by China
Links for the day
Links 27/08/2025: Microsoft Demoralises Staff With Slop Demands, Leaving Mastodon Explained
Links for the day
More People Need to Call Out and Put a Stop to Serial Sloppers
Unless slopfarms are stopped, people will read and share Microsoft propaganda made by chatbots
Gemini Links 27/08/2025: Headphones and Tartarus
Links for the day
Morale at Microsoft is Terrible (Proprietary Plagiarism Machines Have No Future, LLM Slop is a Bubble)
The slop sceptics/critics are going to have lots of "told you so" moments
GNOME "governance issues, staff reduction, etc." amidst Albanian whistleblowing and women trafficking
Notice the connection to Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) and GNOME
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, August 26, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, August 26, 2025
Richard Stallman (RMS) Was Right About "Sideloading" in 1996
We now have computers that treat booting GNU/Linux like an act of "Sideloading"
Panama: Windows Down From 97% "Market Share" to Less Than 30%
In 2009, Windows was measured at 97.24% (compared to 62.32% right now or less than 30% if one also counts Android)
The UEFI 9/11 - Part I - Introduction to Impending Catastrophe (Microsoft Preventing People From Booting Non-Windows Systems)
eight-part series
Why Techrights is Slow Today (Bot Floods)
We don't know if those bots are connected to LLMs (we have not checked), but that is a possibility
Slopwatch: DDoS Slop, LinuxBSDos.com Spam, and Slopfarms in Google News, Including webpronews.com
Among the news we also found fakes, albeit not so much today
Links 26/08/2025: "Ballooning Debt" in France and "Transnational Repression in the UK"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/08/2025: Listening to Alcest and Google Doing Evil (Users Installing Software is "Sideloading" and Prohibited)
Links for the day
Links 26/08/2025: DNS Tampering and TikTok Layoffs
Links for the day
Microsoft's Windows "Market Share" Overestimated
Microsoft's income sources are shrinking
We Shall See...
My wife and I are hardly the first victims of Brett Wilson LLP
This New Determination on a Case Echoes the Modus Operandi of Microsoft's Serial Strangler vs Techrights (Its Online Decision/Judgment Says Truth and Public Interest Defend the Publisher)
Noel Anthony Clarke hopefully has enough money left to pay his victims, which include the publishers
Going Offline
There was life before the Net
The Register MS Has Apparently Shut Down Its Office
It is basically a fake address on the face of it
There Are Also Expectations of IBM Layoffs Very Soon With "Narrative Control."
Some of them mention Red Hat and how IBM failed to achieve anything substantial with that acquisition
After at Least Two Rounds of Mass Layoffs in August Microsoft Said to Have "September Layoff Confirmed - Performance Based"
Those "M5 level meetings" sound plausible
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, August 25, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, August 25, 2025