EU Slams Microsoft Over Lack of Browser Choice

[The White Hunter]

I hear dyou got some fairly malicious homophobes there.

Played Warfighter yet? To me it reeks of a agme in dire need of 6 extra months in development. I hate how losing a point in Rush is basically you get 10 seconds to live then the game will kill you for lulz.

Also the menu system is confusingh and has fucked up controls. Why the fuck does X/A keep sending me back?!

It's not bad here on the West coast, we're more laid back generally, I've heard, although I haven't been farther east than Alberta.

I haven't yet, I'm not willing to fork out the $60 minimum, pirate it, or deal with the post-launch bugs. Plus I just got sick of BF3, a very similar game, about a month ago after 200+ hours of play. I doubt I'll be buying it anytime soon.

I've heard bad things is all I'm saying, been ages since I bothered to read that kind of news though.

It's not bad, unfinished is definately the best way to escribe it, the multiplayer feels like it could've been unique and interesting, and it's perfectly playable, but it's just concentrated Battlefield tbh. I got bored of BF3 around last February and went back to Bad Company 2!

Edit: God I hope EA and DICE don't ruin Bad Company.

 

[Nickolai77]

5. I do not want other voters in other EU countries electing the officials that can directly influence the UK.

You can vote for officials that can directly influence the affairs of other EU states too you know. Personally, i don't really care if my laws come from Brussels or Westminster, so long as such organisation is democratically accountable then i'm fine. These days, you can't pass laws in the EU without parliamentary approval and that's how it should be- in fact, the EU parliament needs more power to make it more democratically accountable. The EU Commission is meant to be a civil service, but the amount of decision making powers it has beyond what you'd expect from a civil service is a bit out of proportion.

From the last paragraph where you go on about British Imperialism or whatever.... that's how a typical EU country member voter views the UK...i'm not going to accuse you of prejudice or Racism..i Just don't want people like you influencing UK legislation-you clearly do not have much sympathy for us if something goes wrong ie. If UK needs some tax/trade legislation changed to help our economy.

He's not far from the truth. In my opinion there is a view of "British Exceptionalism" in Europe and it's in part to do with Britain's imperial legacy. Britain's an island which in itself breeds a sense of separateness from the continent, but mainly Britain is a country which is intensely proud of resisting the Nazi's in WW2. The British national identity revolves around this romanticised legacy of beating the Germans in the Battle of Britain, we're proud of it to the point of obsessing about it which i think is quite revealing about our national character. The English Channel creates a geographic separation, but the whole notion of Britain "standing alone" whilst the rest of Europe crumbled beneath Nazi jackboots has led to this further sense of being distinct and separate to Europe to the point we barely regard ourselves as European. When in reality, Britain's one of the grand old state's of Europe. Our language is very European, our history is typically European, and our culture and general political outlook is certainly European. We just choose not to notice.

But when a criminal gets in and actually commits a crime burglary, assualt, rape...we cannot deport them straight away if at all because of some EU human rights laws. This rubbish actually causes racism. Then while the long process is happening the UK tax payer is paying for the court system and accommodation, food for the criminal...great.

The European Court of Human Rights(ECHR)upholds a series of laws which on the whole are very reasonable. The reason why these problems come up with deporting immigrants is that you can't do things like send such immigrants back to a country where there is a real risk of them being tortured or executed. The UK deports hundreds if not thousands of people a year without interference from Strasbourg, but when the UK tries to deport someone who might be tortured or killed then the xenophobic press jump on the band wagon and say we need to leave the European Convention of Human Rights because we can't deport this person- neglecting to mention of course that the reason the ECHR is blocking the deportation is because they feel it may mean they will get tortured or killed.

Like the EU, the ECHR has it's problems (For instance, i think how they interpret "right to a family" needs to be amended) but i don't think there is any point in leaving the whole thing when you could work from the inside to establish moderate reforms in how the court interprets the laws it upholds.

 

[Tiger Sora]

I have to use Explorer for 5 seconds to download Chrome! OH THE HUMANITY!

Exactly! Well I use Safari on my laptop. But really, Europe... sigh.

I shall use this in my case that Europeans are just as lazy as American's. But may have on average better looking people.

 

[Vicarious Reality]

I really can not understand how they can legally force Microsoft to include software that they did not make in their products

EU is the best governing body we had yet on the planet.

Nope. That honor belongs to the US government after the end of slavery and before the Federal Reserve.

I agree, i live on the border of the EU thing, we never really went into that thing willingly entirely and the way things are going now i expect everyone here to resent it even more

Small governments!

 

[Therumancer]

IMO Microsoft shouldn't comply, and the US goverment should back them.

To be entirely honest the US economy isn't in great shape and we've spent billions bailing Europe out of debt when we really couldn't afford it. Microsoft is a US company and it's revenues and trade results in taxes and tariffs going into US coffers. Something as prolific as web browsing software and the amount of money/power that gives Microsoft can translate into a lot of cash for the US if our goverment is smart about it for once.

The EU's perspective in cases like this (which involve a lot of things) is that they don't want to be beholden practically or financially to foreign/US technology. Not to mention being able to produce and circulate more euro-centric browsers allows them to more easily control information through software created in their back yard.

On one hand I can understand the EU striving for financial and technological independance, which is part of what the EU and it's trade policies were about. On the other I feel their big attempt failed, and the US which was already a wreck had to step in and help the guys who sought to replace us, to keep the market open if nothing else. Under the circumstances I pretty much want to see Europe more beholden to the US.

This is a complicated matter that could be discussed heavily here, especially with international Escapists from Europe, so I'm not going to get into it at the moment, especially seeing as what I'm saying isn't very nice overall, and the discussion could get nasty. Right now I am very believe in a "US first" policy with all of our problems and doing what we need to for ourselves. We helped bail our Europe, but I think it's stupid to be entirely philanthropic about this given our problems. As I see things the activities of US based companies directly impact the bottom line for the US. Microsoft itself, as large as it is, might be a drop in the bucket, but those drops add up if we pretty much stick to what's going to give us much needed money, power, and control when those things are slipping.

Not to mention that there is something of a humanitarian interest here. While anti-trust is invoked and browsers like "Firefox" and "Chrome" are mentioned, I've read a lot about European censorship, suerveillance, and free speech issues, many conducted under the arguements of "cultural protection from foreign ideas". I believe France in paticular was kind of vocal about US media eroding the French identity. Cooperate too much and it won't be Europeans going to other, untouched, browsers, but probably being gradually sheparded into ones that can be better controlled. It's funny because I think half the problem is that Microsoft for all of it's exploitation prevents goverments from doing too much of their own, at least not on the level that they would like to.

I doubt it will happen, especially if Obama hits term 2 (he's not a big believer in big business as a foundation for the country) but this is the kind of case where I think the interests of the US and a company coincide... at least to an extent. With Europe in the condition it's in right now and it's dependancy on bailout money, now is the time to push US business interests in the region.

 

[Don Reba]

It would be only fair to make Apple bail out Spain for all of Apple's transgressions against freedom.

 

[MrTub]

IMO Microsoft shouldn't comply, and the US goverment should back them.

To be entirely honest the US economy isn't in great shape and we've spent billions bailing Europe out of debt when we really couldn't afford it. Microsoft is a US company and it's revenues and trade results in taxes and tariffs going into US coffers. Something as prolific as web browsing software and the amount of money/power that gives Microsoft can translate into a lot of cash for the US if our goverment is smart about it for once.

The EU's perspective in cases like this (which involve a lot of things) is that they don't want to be beholden practically or financially to foreign/US technology. Not to mention being able to produce and circulate more euro-centric browsers allows them to more easily control information through software created in their back yard.

On one hand I can understand the EU striving for financial and technological independance, which is part of what the EU and it's trade policies were about. On the other I feel their big attempt failed, and the US which was already a wreck had to step in and help the guys who sought to replace us, to keep the market open if nothing else. Under the circumstances I pretty much want to see Europe more beholden to the US.

This is a complicated matter that could be discussed heavily here, especially with international Escapists from Europe, so I'm not going to get into it at the moment, especially seeing as what I'm saying isn't very nice overall, and the discussion could get nasty. Right now I am very believe in a "US first" policy with all of our problems and doing what we need to for ourselves. We helped bail our Europe, but I think it's stupid to be entirely philanthropic about this given our problems. As I see things the activities of US based companies directly impact the bottom line for the US. Microsoft itself, as large as it is, might be a drop in the bucket, but those drops add up if we pretty much stick to what's going to give us much needed money, power, and control when those things are slipping.

Not to mention that there is something of a humanitarian interest here. While anti-trust is invoked and browsers like "Firefox" and "Chrome" are mentioned, I've read a lot about European censorship, suerveillance, and free speech issues, many conducted under the arguements of "cultural protection from foreign ideas". I believe France in paticular was kind of vocal about US media eroding the French identity. Cooperate too much and it won't be Europeans going to other, untouched, browsers, but probably being gradually sheparded into ones that can be better controlled. It's funny because I think half the problem is that Microsoft for all of it's exploitation prevents goverments from doing too much of their own, at least not on the level that they would like to.

I doubt it will happen, especially if Obama hits term 2 (he's not a big believer in big business as a foundation for the country) but this is the kind of case where I think the interests of the US and a company coincide... at least to an extent. With Europe in the condition it's in right now and it's dependancy on bailout money, now is the time to push US business interests in the region.

When did you guys bail us out? After ww2 or are you refering to around 2008 and after?
http://p.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/nov/28/no-us-bailout-europe/

And it's always fun seeing Americans talk about censorship and state control in Europe.

 

[Smooth Operator]

So when Apple, Amazon and Google do it, it's good business practice, but when Microsoft does it, that's illegal?

This is a monopoly issue, Microsoft is the only one that gets up in the 90-95% region of OS use which makes any forced use software in the OS completely anti-competitive (which is illegal).

And the reason this issue doesn't come up in other parts of the world is because Microsoft laced enough pockets to keep them quiet.
Heck 5 years ago Russia made a big bruhaha how they will finance their own OS production to break away from OS monopoly, but then MS made a most charitable donation (300mil) directly to the presidential office and the projects quickly got sacked.

But the question remains how come that OS monopoly is allowed in the first place...

 

[xdiesp]

(what with the euro pretty much cursing the world with massive uncertainty damaging other currencies)

Says mr. Dollar, scamming and wasting the world economy for fifty years after repeated crisis and oil wars.

 

[grigjd3]

So when Apple, Amazon and Google do it, it's good business practice, but when Microsoft does it, that's illegal?

This is a monopoly issue, Microsoft is the only one that gets up in the 90-95% region of OS use which makes any forced use software in the OS completely anti-competitive (which is illegal).

That's actually not true anymore. If you consider the vast quantity of different operating system on computing devices, it hasn't been near that for three years. Even six years ago they controlled less than 90%. Further, there is no evidence at all that their so-called monopoly is stopping other companies from competing, rather, there are vastly more option competing for operating systems on both PC and mobile platforms (individually) than there were five years ago. Not only that, IE continues to loose market share despite MS's efforts to keep it otherwise. In other words, there is absolutely no evidence of a monopoly and no evidence that such a so-called monopoly is at all effective at limiting consumer choice.

 

[MiskWisk]

(what with the euro pretty much cursing the world with massive uncertainty damaging other currencies)

Says mr. Dollar, scamming and wasting the world economy for fifty years after repeated crisis and oil wars.

Shame I'm British and therefore do not use the dollar.

Besides, I'd rather have one economy ruined by corruption than a currency that was doomed to fail from the start. Lesser of two evils sort of thing.

 

[darksakul]

This never made any sense to me and continues to make no sense to me. Why do they need to offer anything? Are they requiring, oh I don't know, Apple to provide a choice of browser on their iPhone?

The mere existence of IE on my PC doesn't prevent me from installing Chrome, Firefox, Opera or anything else.

I'd say this was an outdated concept except that it never, ever made any sense to me. They might as well complain that there's no choice of Notepad or Solitaire providers, because I'm stuck with what MSFT gives me when I install it, no matter that I can install all the notepad clones or games I want after the fact.

Thank you

I have to use Explorer for 5 seconds to download Chrome! OH THE HUMANITY!

I know I feel your pain brother or sister.

I guess they DID sign an agreement that they aren't honoring for whatever reason. the European Union is well within it's rights to charge the fine.

But really, EU, really? Did Internet Explorer prevent England from using your currency? Is Internet Explorer responsible for Switzerland not joining your Country Club? Are you going to start blaming WW2 on IE now?

"Hello. My name is European Union... you killed my father... prepare to die!"

>.>

Psst... PSSST.... hey EU... I can't help but notice that the Browser Selection Screen... OPENS IN INTERNET EXPLORER! You're tainted by the IE disease from the get-go.

---

You know what this looks like to me?Given that the European Union has to date fined Microsoft ?1.64 billion (US$2.1 billion) for various offenses, a fine for this particular breach wouldn't mark a huge deviation from the norm.It looks like the EU is searching for every tiny little thing to justify stealing money from Microsoft.

Because the US refused to bail out the EU like it did for American Banks?

You know, I should complain that the only browser on my Nexus 7 table by default is Google Chrome, that my Mac Book only has Safari(Hint I don't own a Mac), and that the EU is growing more socialistic each year. I would day by the day, but knowing the EU, there bureaucratic non-sence to go though first.

 

[Weaver]

Why has Apple not been fined for producing a wide array of devices that are software locked 10x worse than anything Microsoft has ever produced?

You can just buy OS X Mountain Lion on the App Store and install it on any Intel PC without having to own any apple hardware at all. You can buy an OS from Apple and install it, but it isn't subject to these regulations. Why?

 

[FalloutJack]

This is pathetic from all ends of the spectrum. I'm telling entire companies and countries here to just grow up.