Did Google Tip Off EU About Microsoft Browser Ballot? 187
Dupple writes with a story about the latest in the Google-Microsoft feud. "The tired spat between Google and Microsoft just got a lot more interesting after reports that the search giant tipped off European authorities to antitrust concerns, a tip that will now cost the Windows-maker nearly a billion dollars. When news of the fine levied by the European Union's competition watchdog broke on Wednesday, nobody was too surprised that the European Commission was punishing Microsoft for bullying consumers. But with a recent headline-stealing dispute between the Redmond, Washington company and Google, it's competitor down in Mountain View, California, bloggers got curious. Early Wednesday evening, The Wall Street Journal's Tom Gara wondered, 'Did Google Snitch?' According to a Financial Times report published a few minutes later, the answer is yes."
The ballot was down for 14 months. (Score:4, Interesting)
According to reports, the ballot was out of action for 14 months before the EU noticed. So if Google really did snitch, they most certainly did not do so in a timely manner.
This just seems to be pure speculation, given the length of time the ballot was down, it could be anyone or no one...
Re:Obvious troll (Score:5, Interesting)
In what way do you have to fight WMP? You can set the default player by file type (and all video players give you the option to make their program the default). Plus you can go into "Turn Windows features on or off" and remove Windows Media Player completely in standard Windows 7.
Well, I'm not the person you are replying to, but I installed the N version of Windows 7, and everything was cool and froody. I installed my favourite mp3 player, foobar2000, and all was well. Then I needed to get a Windows Performance Index for my PC, and for that I needed to install WMP. And, crazily, I lost the context menus in Explorer for "Play in foobar2000" and "Enqueue in foobar2000." After trying many registry tweaks I researched, I uninstalled WMP and got my menus back. I suspect that's the kind of fighting that the person you are replying to experienced.
I think I only got the full Aero UI experience once I'd installed WMP and calculated my WPI, but I might be wrong on that front.
Who doesn't? (Score:2, Interesting)
n you're asserting you know better than Microsoft what should be done to their OS
Who doesn't know better than Microlost? For example, does anyone think Metro was a good idea? Hot corners? Burying "turn off" in Control Pnael, several clicks away from the desktop? One might say that any argument predicated on Microsoft having a clue is suspect.
There is something better than a fine ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Copyright and Patents are not a human right, or an undeniable/natural right. They are a made up concept, a contract between society and the copyright/patent holder. "We will allow you to restrict usage of this particular work if you continue to make other works like this for the benefit of society". Sure, it doesn't work that way, but that's what's supposed to be anyway. So, since we are giving someone a privilege, society should be able to set the rules, and take back the privilege if the rules are broken. So the contract should be more like "We will allow you to restrict usage of this particular work for a limited period of time, but you must offer this work under reasonable prices and policies, you must respect your users, and you must play nicely with the rest of the market. Also, you have to deposit all of your source code and any other information you used to create your work, and after that period expires, or if you break the contract, they'll be released to the public domain.". That sounds like a much more rational contract. You want the privilege of copyright or patents? Great, we'll give it to you. We'll give you anywhere between 5 and 15 years of copyright or patent protection, how much will depend on the kind of work you are releasing. In exchange, you have to deposit with us all relevant information regarding your work, for example, source code in the case of software, manufacturing procedures and blueprints in the case of hardware, etc. If you breach this contract, you'll lose all protection, and after the the original protection is over, we'll still release all that information. If your breach of contract is bad enough, we'll also release all those secrets early.
This fine is like making the penalty for bank robbery 25% of the money stolen. Everyone will be robbing banks ... it's not a penalty, or a fine, it's a tax. Well, microsoft's benefit from locking down the market far exceeds 731 million dollars, so it's not a fine, it's just tax.
Threaten companies with losing copyright and patent protection, and see how quickly they start to behave.