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The European Commission has fined Microsoft (MSFT) €561M for taking too long to fulfill its...

  • Wednesday, March 6, 7:52 AM ET
    The European Commission has fined Microsoft (MSFT) €561M for taking too long to fulfill its commitment to a 2009 settlement to provide consumers with a choice of Internet browsers in its Windows OS. The penalty brings total EU fines for Microsoft over the past decade to €2.26B. Google (GOOG), which is under an EU investigation for possible abuse of its search dominance, may well be watching with interest. (PR)
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This news story has 10 comments:

  •  
    Penalty of 2.26B for MSFT.
    May be it is the way EU can solve some economic problems?
    6 Mar, 08:08 AM Reply Like
  •  
    EU apparently needs $$$
    6 Mar, 08:13 AM Reply Like
  •  
    561m euros for a browser. You have to be joking.
    6 Mar, 08:24 AM Reply Like
  •  
    Extortion (also called blackmail*, shakedown, outwresting, and exaction): a criminal offence of unlawfully obtaining money, property, or services from a person, entity, or institution, through coercion.

    As a MSFT stockholder, I ask top level manament to not pay a single cent to the E.C, stop inmediately selling any product in the European Union and cancel all support contracts. Then they must proceed to close operations in this continent, sell assets and fire all employees.

    There is a lot of money to be made in countries that not govern themselves as the organized crime.
    6 Mar, 09:12 AM Reply Like
  •  
    Absolutely agree! Lets see who needs whom? It is a total ridicules charge. Any user can download any browser they want.
    6 Mar, 09:28 AM Reply Like
  •  
    Microsoft abused from its dominant position, by installing Internet Explorer it drives traffic to Bing, so probably they indirectly gained a lot more $ from advertising, a lot more than the fine.
    And they did know they had to comply: it's not so difficult to ask the end user about the browser to be installed.
    6 Mar, 11:36 AM Reply Like
  •  
    MSFT should raise all its product prices in the EU by 2 euros effective immediately. MSFT has no product that is a monopoly.
    6 Mar, 09:31 AM Reply Like
  •  
    Msft should pay for having its browser reduced to 24% in discount coupons for Win8 or Windows Phone8. The EU is astonishing. They have such disrespect for the US and US taxpayers. Why do they dislike Obama so much? And where is that 1.5B that they owe Intc back anyway?
    6 Mar, 12:00 PM Reply Like
  •  
    I recall when they were looking into breaking up MS here in the US. Soon MS learned they had to grease the political machine to do business. It's just part of the pseudo capitalist process. You have to buy into the lobby system of distorting markets. If there is a poster child for distorted market, the American healthcare market is. If you compare it to other undustrilaized nations and look at the lobby money, you know I'm just stating the obvious. http://bit.ly/vyDG6K
    6 Mar, 12:47 PM Reply Like
  •  
    Microsoft should also be sued over their UEFI shenanigans.
    6 Mar, 01:55 PM Reply Like
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