Wednesday, December 16, 2009

IE: Brussels accepts the proposal from Microsoft

 the European Commission announced that he had finally settled the issue of abuse of dominant position involving the Internet Explorer browser. The case was brought before the authorities in Brussels by the publisher Norwegian Opera Software, which was supported by the Mozilla Foundation and Google. To avoid penalties, Microsoft had proposed this was a home screen offering to install alternative software.

Finally, the Redmond company will not be punished. During a period of five years Microsoft will introduce Windows Updates via an installation wizard reviewed and adjusted for users of Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 allowing them to choose the browser they want to install in addition to or instead Internet Explorer. This measure will apply to the European area. Under the terms of the contract, the OEM distributors will also be able to install competing software and disable Internet Explorer.

Neelie Kroes, European Commissioner responsible for competition matters, explains: "This decision will benefit millions of European consumers by allowing them to choose their web browser. She added that this initiative should enable publishers to innovate by offering ever more powerful software.

The European Commission states that "if Microsoft were to break its commitments, the Commission could impose a fine of up to 10% of its annual sales total without having to prove any violation of rules EU anti-trust and abuse of dominant position. "

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