Europe eases up on Microsoft monitoring
The European Commission is to cease permanent monitoring of Microsoft’s behavior when it comes to sharing technical information. It ends five years of the firm being under the spotlight – but other European cases against the firm continue.
The monitoring began after a 2004 antitrust order which fined the firm $794 million and forced it to be more open about its technology so that other firms had a fair chance of competing by producing applications which could run on Microsoft systems such as Windows. The European Commission appointed Cambridge University computer science professor Neil Barrett as a full-time ‘monitoring trustee’ to make sure the documents Microsoft made available contained enough detail to be useful.
The Commission now believes Microsoft has proven it is complying with the order and no longer needs permanent monitoring. It noted that there’s also less need for such close scrutiny now it’s easier for rival firms to take legal action through European courts to force openness. But the Commission has reserved the right to use consultants to check on the firm’s behavior as and when they believe it necessary.
The most interesting point in today’s announcement is that the Commission appears to concede that Microsoft complied with the ruling to hand over documents some time ago. That’s the first time it’s acknowledged the supplied documents were sufficient and follows several disputes over the years in which the Commission has complained Microsoft was keeping too many technical details confidential and thus breaking the order. It imposed additional fines on Microsoft for these breaches, taking the total bill to more than $2 million.
The announcement does not affect the ongoing case over Microsoft bundling Internet Explorer with Windows. The European Commission has ruled in principle that such behavior breaches competition laws and Microsoft has until later this month to either accept the ruling or demand a full hearing.
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