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Comments: 464 +- Your Rights Online: EU Wants Multiple Browser Bundling On New PCs on Saturday May 30 2009, @03:57PM
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An anonymous reader writes with a link to Ars Technica's report that "the EU is considering forcing Windows users to choose a browser to download and install before they can first browse the Internet, according to The Wall Street Journal (subscription required). While the latest Windows 7 builds let you uninstall IE8, 'third-party browser makers like Opera, Mozilla and Google are pushing for tough sanctions against Microsoft. The EU would rather have a "ballot screen" for users to choose which browsers to download and install as well as which one to set as default. The bundling requirement might end up becoming a responsibility for manufacturers.'"
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Forcing OEMs? (Score:5, Insightful)
The bundling requirement might end up becoming a responsibility for manufacturers.
This is just as stupid as forcing Microsoft to bundle alternative browser binaries with Windows.
The solution to the problem is to force Microsoft to allow OEMs to bundle other browsers with Windows the same way they do anything else. Microsoft's dictating what software can be included with Windows is the real anti-competitive behavior here -- so fix it by removing that behavior. If Dell wants to include Firefox, let them. If Opera wants to sign a deal with HP to include its browser on all their machines, let them.
Don't force all OEMs to include all browsers. That's stupid and impractical.
Re:Forcing OEMs? (Score:5, Insightful)
No!!!
The amount of crapware they could preinstall with a customized browser is unthinkable.
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Re:Forcing OEMs? (Score:5, Informative)
Microsoft's rules do not disallow OEMs bundling browsers.
Believe it or not.
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Re:Forcing OEMs? (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Forcing OEMs? (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, it is those actions PRECISELY why we are in the situation we are in now. The argument is most certainly NOT moot. They used that illegal action to become the defacto browser, and now its time to pay at least lip service to the piper for it.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And you really want to leave that power with them?
We have a fact of them (ab)using that power, why should we, the EU people let them have it. I vote take that power from them!
Bah Humbug (Score:5, Funny)
Wont anybody think of the users. I dont want to have to make choices thats why I use Windows in the first place.
This could get (even more) stupid (Score:4, Interesting)
[ ]IE
[ ]FireFox
[ ]Opera
[ ]Safari
Which image editor do you want?
[ ]MS Paint
[ ]GIMP
[ ]Paint.net
Which text editor do you want?
[ ]Notepad
[ ]Notepad2
[ ]vi
[ ]Emacs
and on and on...
Re:This could get (even more) stupid (Score:5, Funny)
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Which would be kinda neat, if your options were be comparable. You can't compare MS Paint with GIMP, or Notepad with vim. Having such a choice for a browser, mail client, etc., would be fine. But making the average Joe choose between Notepad and vim would certainly be a distaster for those that chose vim. Your joke would probably be funny if you were given a choice between IE and Lynx...
In a near future... (Score:3, Interesting)
Hm. (Score:3, Interesting)
The EU would rather have a "ballot screen" for users to choose which browsers to download and install as well as which one to set as default
That's not really bundling now, is it? How do they server this list to the user? Must be a webpage, Shirley?
Also.. who chooses which browsers are included in the list? M$? What's to stop M$ putting theirs at the top of the list? I like the idea but it needs more thinking through. I read TFA (yes, I'm new here, etc.) and it was very light on detail.
I somehow sense this isn't the end of the matter..
Proper tabloid (Score:3, Insightful)
Timothy, please next time consider the difference between the verb used in the title (EU Wants Multiple Browser Bundling On New PCs) and in TF summary (the EU is considering forcing Windows users to choose).
We don't need you to be a professional editor (even though you probably are paid for the job), but please just try not to work like a moron from a random tabloid.
Be careful what you wish for (Score:3, Funny)
I wonder whether as a result of this policy that IE6 becomes one of the many different browser options, just to keep happy those businesses with legacy code that wont work on anything else!
Now that really would cause Microsoft a headache - competing with its own lack of standards...
Not that many web designers will be happy with this though!
F***ing stupid beyond belief (Score:4, Insightful)
So "all other browsers" can demand to be on the list. What's to prevent "American Adware" and "Built By Boris" (from Russian Business Network) from showing up on the list?
This is a pain in the rear for consumers but... (Score:4, Insightful)
The last thing a consumer wants to do, when they turn on a computer, is to immediately be asked more questions. It's a pain in the rear. Sorry EU, but how about we start requiring that all cars imported from the EU to the USA have the option of being fitted with American V8s....
oh wait, that sounds like a good a idea.
Never mind.
This is not fair (Score:4, Insightful)
This whole "browser war" nonsense has gone on long enough. Back when a browser was a novelty, perhaps even sold on the shelf at the store, maybe it made sense to worry about competition. However, now that the browser is essential to everyday computing and part of the platform, the demands being made entirely idiotic. It should not matter if people are given IE8 out of the gate or not. I do agree that they should be able to disable or uninstall it if they feel it's a security problem. However, forcing vendors to include other browsers is only slightly widening the selective controlled distribution and does not address any of the problems IE's dominance has caused in the first place.
Quite simply put, the reason IE is popular is because people do not care about which browser they use. A small percentage does, and it seem this site is popular with that group but at this point, a browser is part of a platform as a steering wheel is part of a car. Occasionally an enthusiast replaces his steering wheel but most people don't care about it.
But what does a steering wheel have in common with browsers besides being a platform staple? They support standards. The steering wheel is a standard interface, and while they do vary from car to car, they all support a common baseline of functionality and features.
So the real solution to this IE problem is not to force a company to support their competition. No I vehemently disagree with that, it's simply wrong to force a company to collude with their competition. Instead, the solution is to enforce IE's support of recognized standards. If you truly wish to neuter Microsoft's control of the WWW, then limit them to implementing standards compliant browsing only, let the community and the market decide what that means, and then let people continue to make their own choices about browsers.
Frankly if you look at all platforms, not just personal computer platforms, you will see that they all include their own browser choice, whether it be a Linux based OS that includes firefox, or a smartphone that includes a webkit based browser like Nokia's S60 platform. Macs include Safari, my Wii came with a free Opera download, my DSi came with a free opera download, and my PS3 includes a browser based on the same tech they use for their feature cell phones.
So targeting microsoft just because this mattered 10 years ago is pretty ridiculous, especially when you're failing to target the real problem in the first place.
Re:This is not fair (Score:5, Insightful)
This whole "browser war" nonsense has gone on long enough. Back when a browser was a novelty, perhaps even sold on the shelf at the store, maybe it made sense to worry about competition. However, now that the browser is essential to everyday computing and part of the platform, the demands being made entirely idiotic.
So your argument is that browsers are now more important, so competition and the advantages t brings via the free market are less important? Umm. That's a very umm, creative opinion.
It should not matter if people are given IE8 out of the gate or not.
And it shouldn't matter if you have to pay AT&T to rent on old rotary dial phone, you can always buy a better one and use it. That is if you ignore everything we know about markets, innovation and antitrust abuse and its affects.
However, forcing vendors to include other browsers is only slightly widening the selective controlled distribution and does not address any of the problems IE's dominance has caused in the first place.
Actually it does. If Web developers know a particular standards compliant browser will be installed on every computer, they are more likely to implement new, standards compliant technologies since they can be confident all users will be able to use sites that rely upon them.
...a browser is part of a platform as a steering wheel is part of a car.
Your analogy fails. No one has a monopoly on cars and steering wheels don't constitute a pre-existing, separate market.
Instead, the solution is to enforce IE's support of recognized standards.
This is one, potential remedy, but it is only a partial solution. It is, in fact, what Opera asked for as a remedy.
Frankly if you look at all platforms, not just personal computer platforms, you will see that they all include their own browser choice, whether it be a Linux based OS that includes firefox, or a smartphone that includes a webkit based browser like Nokia's S60 platform.
Yes, they do. If you look at computers in general, you'll notice they all include RAM. You'll also notice the RAM doesn't come bundled with the graphics chipset and people selling computers aren't forced to buy the two components from the same vendor because one company developed a monopoly on graphic chipsets and forced everyone to buy RAM with it. Instead computer makers buy the best RAM and the best graphic chipset and combine them. The point is to make sure because OEMs are forced to buy and ship the Windows OS because it has monopolized the market, they aren't given incentive to chose anything other than the best Web browser to include as well.
So targeting microsoft just because this mattered 10 years ago is pretty ridiculous...
It matters today. Without competition in the Web browser market, it stagnates and technologies don't advance rapidly. We've had a decade of crippled Web technologies and Web developers being forced to find ever more clever ways to hack around the limitations and make really old and incomplete technologies work. The easiest way to fix the problem and keep it fixed is to restore the free market and let it do the work.
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I demand multiple radios in my new car (Score:3, Insightful)
Worse, they tied my Chevy's radio to the operating system: the volume turns up when the car goes faster, and it knows which key fob I used to unlock the doors. This is anticompetitive and monopolist.
I demand that GM install multiple radios -- one each from Ford, Chrysler, Bosch, Blaupunkt, and Kraco, plus an open-source handwired crystal receiver from Heathkit -- and I demand that they print the wiring diagram on the hood (so I can design my own radio anytime I come down off the Percocet).
Every time I start the car, I should be presented with a menu allowing me to choose which will serve as the "default radio."
Why the fuss? (Score:4, Insightful)
OEMs pick image organisers for their users: also fine
OEMs pick ISP software for their users: no problem
OEMs are given the opportunity to pick browsers for their users: *shitstorm*
To me this looks like the media trolling for attention; in the real world OEMs will either bundle IE or IE + firefox, and no end user will notice any difference...
Oh, maybe we should have this for everything then? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Came here to say this. They're about ten years too late and it won't achieve anything (in fact I think it's a bad idea at this stage).
Re:The EU is still beating this dead horse? (Score:4, Insightful)
That's because the case has been grinding on for a long, long time. Microsoft have been messing about trying to evade a series of judgements for years and years. Do we now want to send them the message 'Avoid complying with the law for long enough that the progress of technology renders the question irrelevant, and then there will be no consequences'? Or do we want to penalise them so that the next time something like this happens, the offender actually complies immediately rather than delaying for the best part of a decade?
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Re:The EU is still beating this dead horse? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:The EU is still beating this dead horse? (Score:5, Funny)
You know what would really be a monopolistic practice? If they made the hardware and then forced you to use their operating system on their hardware. Thank god that doesn't happen.
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I agree that the browser wars are dead, and that there are much worse things with MS than their practices with IE. What boils my blood most is how the price of XP dropped off the market for no particular reason once we started seeing OEMs put Linux on netbooks. Why was XP still $100 about 5 years after and all of a sudden it's down to $30? Isn't this far more abusive as a monopoly? It's not even just one corner aspect of the OS, it's the entire thing that they're using to lock you in. I just don't get it.
Re:The EU is still beating this dead horse? (Score:5, Insightful)
Once you've done that, go to a country back east where ALL the banks got suckered into using ActiveX for their online transactions.
THEN you can come back here and ask how bundling IE with windows hurt anyone.
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Re:The EU is still beating this dead horse? (Score:4, Insightful)
Come back after you've spent a week making a really nice, easy to use, easy on the eyes website to standards, then spent another week making it work in IE7, then another 3 weeks making it work in IE6 (yes lots of people still use that P.OS.)!
Once you've done that, go to a country back east where ALL the banks got suckered into using ActiveX for their online transactions.
THEN you can come back here and ask how bundling IE with windows hurt anyone.
I can understand your frustration, I have been there. While I generally don't think that a company should be forced to bundle a competitor's products. However, Windows has what? ... a 90% market share on desktops? When a company has established market dominance to the point where it's OS is practically the only product on the market, it is bundling software with it's OS and it has a history of using bundling to aggressively to kill off it's competition, IMHO the rules change. So perhaps a "ballot screen" option like this isn't such a bad idea.
Just my 0,02€
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Re:The EU is still beating this dead horse? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:This just cracks me up... (Score:5, Informative)
Advertising revenue. Look up how Mozilla Corporation makes money from partnerships with, possibly among others, Google.
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Re:This just cracks me up... (Score:5, Insightful)
And so you are killing ONE monopoly(IE) and strengthening another (Google). Does that make any sense? And it wasn't like it was hard to toss IE before. hell every new PC build I do here in the shop composes three steps when I have the desktop up. 1-plug in flash. 2-Install Firefox 3- Toss IE Icon in the trash and replace with Firefox Icon, which i load with ABP and Forecast Fox, which my customers really love.
To me this is just the EU being really fucking dumb, yet again. Anybody remember XP-N? For those that hadn't heard of it, the EU forced MSFT to make an sell a version of XP with no media player called XP-N. I'm sure there is a landfill in Eastern Europe filled with XP-N discs because the retailers said they couldn't give them away and it was more worthless than an AOL CD. And what if you don't have the Internet up yet,hmmm? Most routers require a browser to do the initial config. So if i am in the EU I have the choice of plugging my Windows machine straight into the net(and get boned) or not having the net at all because I can't set my router until i download a browser, which i can't do without setting my router. Gee, I wonder how many other ways this can go wrong? Dumb EU, just dumb.
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Re:This just cracks me up... (Score:5, Insightful)
Google is not a monopoly. Stop pretending it is one.
Having a choice as to what web browser to use is more important than you think. People will use the default one, which is a big part of how IE got such a large market share.
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Re:This just cracks me up... (Score:4, Insightful)
To me this is just the EU being really fucking dumb, yet again. Anybody remember XP-N? For those that hadn't heard of it, the EU forced MSFT to make an sell a version of XP with no media player called XP-N. I'm sure there is a landfill in Eastern Europe filled with XP-N discs because the retailers said they couldn't give them away and it was more worthless than an AOL CD.
To be fair, Microsoft made that situation way worse than it had to be. They completely stripped out compatibility with windows media videos, when they didn't have to(Proof: nLite), with the argument that they had to. (which was bullshit)
And instead of offering choices of which media player to use, they offered... nothing. They torpedoed the EU's demands on purpose to make them look bad. Very childish, although I suppose if I were being sued by them for hundreds of millions of dollars, I may have done the same. :P
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Re:This just cracks me up... (Score:4, Insightful)
those other browsers are free so who cares if Windows users are forced to use IE?
Maybe the makers of browsers which aren't free? It would at least let people know that alternatives exist and that the "blue E" isn't "the internet"
And, as Microsoft is so want to say: Free == bad, so IE must really suck.
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Re:This just cracks me up... (Score:5, Informative)
The Mozilla Foundation makes many tens of millions of dollars from Google. If nobody installs Firefox, Google isn't going to be giving them that kind of money anymore.
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When Big Daddy Warbucks Leaves Town (Score:5, Insightful)
The Mozilla Foundation makes many tens of millions of dollars from Google. If nobody installs Firefox, Google isn't going to be giving them that kind of money anymore.
Now that Google has its own platform in Chrome why does it need Mozilla?
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Re:When Big Daddy Warbucks Leaves Town (Score:4, Informative)
Good point. However..
1) Market share. Chrome doesn't have that many takers yet in the greater scheme of things. A lot of people use Firefox. Most of those go to Firefox-ised Google as their default homepage. Not to be sniffed at.
2) Goodwill by association. Firefox is good and open source and people like it. Never hurts.
Suppose Chrome get to 70% of the browser market, Firefox 20% and the rest 10%. 20% (ish) of people going to Google as their homepage (by default) is still something you want. Yes.
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Re:This just cracks me up... (Score:5, Insightful)
...those other browsers are free so who cares if Windows users are forced to use IE?
I do, because I'd rather be able to develop to standards and I'd rather Web technologies could move forward again instead of being held back by one, dominant, least common denominator browser.
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WALL ST JOURNAL PAYWALL (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:That's not a fucking monopoly. (Score:5, Funny)
You can't force them to support other browsers, hell, they could only support internet explorer if they wanted to.
Your choices:
Internet Explorer 8 (Recommended)
AOL Explorer
Lynx
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Re:That's not a fucking monopoly. (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree with you on that: freedom in society is probably inversely proportional to the number of regulations, although the scope of the regulations is also important. I don't know how many places outside the EU are any better however.
But an interesting question is whether you can have a free society when you have companies that can enforce monopolies. Without government interference, would Microsoft have been able to obtain a practically 100% monopoly over vast ranges of software by now? There would have been nothing to stop them eliminating most hardware that didn't restrict itself to Windows, and they would have "embraced and extended" every Internet protocol. After that it would be easy for them to require approval for any software that runs on Windows, and eliminate anything that competes with their own products.
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Re:They'll cock it up (Score:4, Informative)
Win7 lets you remove iexplore.exe but not Trident's libraries (the rendering engine).
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:For fuck's sake... (Score:5, Informative)
The anti-competitive behavior is not the bundling of IE itself, but rather the conditions Microsoft imposed upon OEMs who wished to install/default to other browsers. It has at times entirely disallowed other browsers and at others given a substantial discount for making IE the only/default browser on new systems.
I don't know to what extent this crap is still the case today.
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Re:For fuck's sake... (Score:4, Informative)
Microsoft wasn't doing anything wrong bundling IE in the 90's and they're not doing anything wrong now.
Yeah, except for breaking antitrust law and undermining the operation of the free market in a way that almost certainly is responsible for the fact that Web technologies have almost completely stopped advancing for the last decade.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Because IE IS explorer. You remove IE totally and you don't get your file browsing, you don't get your pretty icons on your desktop, you don't get your taskbar/systray/start menu/etc. Sure, they tell you that you can uninstall it, but believe me, you aren't actually uninstalling. You are just removing the IE monikors for the whole Frankenstein Monster.
Re:No fan of MS, but spreading FUD (Score:5, Interesting)
No. IE is not Explorer. I have an Nlited Windows XP, from which IE has been completely removed. Explorer works just fine without IE. Stop spreading FUD, please.
However - Explorer can be removed from XP along with IE, and replaced with some other shell. There are dozens of them available, many for free. The pretty icons, taskbar, systray, and start menus that you cite aren't even "part of the operating system", as you seem to imply.
My #1 favorite file browser is PowerDesk. I generally retain the Explorer shell, because the prettiest and best shells are proprietary, and I'm not willing to pay for them.
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Re:No fan of MS, but... (Score:4, Informative)
This is not market regulation. It is enforcement of the law following a complaint of Opera. As simple as that. Microsoft fooled the Commission once with a soft remedy in the media player case, so the Commission won't let that happen a second time and be more specific.
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Re:Sigh... please include _my_ pet project too. (Score:5, Insightful)
...and that Microsoft has been known to 'embrace and extinguish'.
You do know that phrase originated with MS's internal discussions of illegally destroying Web browsers and Web technologies that might threaten them, right?
HOWEVER, this knee-jerk reaction to the browser-wars is really fundamentally flawed.
What knee jerk reaction. MS undermined the free market in illegal ways. Is maybe that you just don't understand the logical reactions of people to the situation and thus brand them "kneejerk". That seems implied by your later failure to understand the issues of antitrust law.
I think it's time we realize that a music jukebox, dvd player, web browser, and text editor have become integral parts of an OS (per my definition).
Is a telephone an integral part of a telephone network? Sure. That doesn't matter because it is also a separate market from telephone service which is why AT&T can't require you to rent a telephone from them anymore, but must sell them separately from your wired connection. It's also the reason after a decade of stagnation we suddenly jumped forward and got push buttons, speed dial, and answering machines when AT&T's monopoly abuse was stopped.
The browser was and is a separate market and we're quite likely to see the same rapid innovation to the benefit of everyone as soon as MS's antitrust abuse is stopped. The thing most Slashdotters can't seem to wrap their heads around is an economic issue of markets, not a technological issue.
I say "rubbish. You might as well ask the user to choose different versions of the TCP stack, paint program, image libraries, and mouse drivers too."
Please do your research. We're talking about separate, preexisting markets. Of the things you mention, only the paint program applies under the law.
Go and get alternatives if you like, just as you're free to get another media player, paint program or ftp client.
Which does nothing to address the broken market or criminal acts or to improve innovation and lower costs. I have an idea, why don't you learn why antitrust laws exist before declaring them to be wrong?
I don't see noise directed against Apple or Linux or BSD, likely because they are {not monopolies | high enough in market share | something else that I can't grok}.
I'll try to explain with an analogy. Murder is illegal. Firing a gun is legal. Firing a gun at a person in a way that murders them is illegal. Bundling is legal. Bundling in a way that undermines the free market is illegal.
In this analogy, only MS has a gun. Apple and Canonical can bundle browsers and OS's all they want because they don't even have to power undermine the market if they wanted to. Apple, on the other hand, is close to having sufficient power in the portable, digital music player market that the EU has looked into restricting them with regard to bundling things with iPods. Companies in the US and EU regularly consider antitrust issues when they have dominance in markets. The real difference here is not the way laws are applied, but that MS has so blatantly disregarded the laws everyone else obeys.
This would suggest that the bundling of Safari on Mac, or Mozilla on Linux is not fundamentally wrong, and is also not wrong on Windows.
Hopefully from my previous comments you now understand that no one suggests bundling is fundamentally wrong. Undermining the free market is fundamentally wrong. Bundling in particular circumstances in ways that undermine markets is what is illegal and detrimental to society.
Perhaps this is unfair to the hapless (as far as tech goes) politicians, but they seem little more than shills for lobbyists, and don't seem to really understand the dangerous precedent they might be setting.
Yeah, enforcing the same
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