Monday, June 1, 2009
Perhaps You’d Like Us to Bundle Netscape Navigator as Well–Just for Old Time’s Sake?
With a 20 percent share of the the world-wide browser market and 31 percent of its European segment, Mozilla’s Firefox browser has clearly proven that Microsoft Internet Explorer is not immune to free-market competition. But the natural course of the free markets is apparently not moving fast enough for the European Commission, which is mulling forcing Microsoft to include browsers other than IE in its Windows OS.
What silliness. Microsoft and the European Commission have canceled a face-to-face hearing in an antitrust case pending against the company over a scheduling dispute, of all things.
Microsoft has a far easier time meeting legal deadlines than software ship dates, doesn’t it? The European Commission today said the company met its deadline to respond to charges that its bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows violates European competition laws.
Oh, they’re all piling on now. Google has thrown its backing behind European antitrust regulators’ latest complaint against Microsoft, which accuses the software behemoth of illegally bundling its Internet Explorer Web browser and Windows operating system. Like Mozilla before it, the company is applying to become a “third party” in the European proceeding.
Mozilla is not only adding its voice to that of European antitrust regulators who claim Microsoft’s bundling of IE with its Windows OS is anticompetitive, but offering its counsel as well. In a post to the Mozilla blog last weekend, Mozilla Corporation CEO Mitchell Baker said that she had “not the single smallest iota of doubt” that the European Commission’s preliminary conclusion that “Microsoft’s tying of Internet Explorer to the Windows operating system harms competition between Web browsers” is correct.
Google Chief Legal Officer David Drummond says the company’s proposed search advertising partnership with Yahoo won’t increase Google’s share of search traffic. But no one appears to be taking him at his word. The World Association of Newspapers said Monday that it opposes the deal, adding its name to a growing list of critics that now includes not just Microsoft, but the Association of National Advertisers and European Union as well. 
