EU

EU investigating Google/Yahoo deal too

Google Subnet — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 09:06:55 -0400

Why should U.S. regulators have all the fun? The European Union (EU) confirmed that it too is investigating the upcoming Google/Yahoo ad deal to discern if it stifles competition in the European Economic Area, according to this guardian.co.uk story. While Google claims the EU has no cause for concern, especially since the deal covers only Yahoo sites in the U.S. and Canada, the EU move can't be good news for Google. As others in the past (Microsoft) have found, EU regulatory scrutiny is plain bad for business.

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Google grudgingly makes data policy change

Google Subnet — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 11:08:42 -0400

Bowing to pressure from European Union regulators, Google announced that it would anonymize IP addresses on its server logs after 9 months, effectively halving the amount of data it kept under its previous 18-month retention policy. In the blog announcing the change, however, Google complained that the data reduction could affect its ability to provide quality searches, as well as to innovate and prevent fraud. Still, Google says it's agreed to make the change to alleviate privacy qualms, especially those voiced by the EU, even though it will provide only "incremental privacy benefits to users."

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Polish watchdog asks the EU to investagate Microsoft for anti-trust

Microsoft Subnet — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 14:09:52 -0400

A watchdog organization in Poland has reportedly asked the EU's European Commission to investigate Microsoft over its dealings with laptop makers in the region, Reuters and the Warsaw Business Journal report. The organization had been conducting an investigation over whether Microsoft was colluding with laptop makers to restrict the availability of Linux as an operating system choice.

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Microsoft removed interoperability documents, Feds accuse

Microsoft Subnet — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 18:29:04 -0400

The court-mandated committee that is overseeing Microsoft's compliance with its federal antitrust settlement said that Microsoft has deleted some key information from its previously published protocols and is breaking its word in the process. So says a story in InformationWeek. Microsoft apparently deleted some data on its Windows protocols from its published technical documentation that others use to write Windows software, according to a report filed last week by the Technical Committee overseeing antitrust compliance.

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Microsoft to add support for ODF and PDF in Office

Microsoft Subnet — Wed, 21 May 2008 13:22:19 -0400

Don't you just want to roll your eyes?

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Microsoft to EU: Please forget about the $1.3 billion fine

Microsoft Subnet — Fri, 09 May 2008 19:39:15 -0400

Microsoft, don't hold your breath that the EU will pat you on the shoulder and forgive the $1.3 fine it imposed in February. It is good for all concerned (including Microsoft itself, your customers and your stock holders), that you have arrived at the modern age and published the protocols for Windows, Office and other applications. This allows Windows to remain viable -- to be a target for open source developers wanting to create great new apps for it, instead of being slowly replaced by Linux (which might still happen).

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Another huge thump on the head from the EU?

Microsoft Subnet — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 12:19:12 -0400

Granted, Microsoft is a ruthless competitor, and the EU's hard-handed approachhas been generally a good thing -- forcing Microsoft to open itself up, which in the long run will be good for everyone, even Microsoft. But it will be interesting to see if the anti-Microsoft forces in Europe can get Microsoft excluded from EU gov't contracts because of the company's antitrust violations.

Given the enormity of the software that would become off limits to EU IT departments, that would not be a good move for anyone.

Go to the Microsoft Subnet home page for more news, blogs, opinion.

EU study highlights weaknesses in regulatory approach to solving cyber crime

stiennon — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 13:11:33 -0400

Security news hound John Leyden has identified a new EU study that is supposed to be about the economics of cyber crime. The 114 page report sponsored by ENISA (European Network and Information Security Agency) is mostly about finding new regulations that could improve security by requiring ISPs to police traffic and hosts as well as create new data disclosure requirements.

ENISA is soliciting comments on the report here . My own submitted comments I have reproduced below.

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EU fines Microsoft $1.3B for antitrust abuse

videonet — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 16:33:36 -0500

In the continuing saga between Microsoft and the European Commission, the commission fined Microsoft 899 million Euros, about 1.3 billion dollars on Wednesday for what the competition commissioner called continued failure to honor a 2004 antitrust ruling.

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EU: We're A Kinder, More Open Microsoft

Mitchell Ashley — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 10:55:07 -0500

It's pretty clear what Microsoft's intentions are behind opening up the trade secret kimono to give us a look at product interoperability protocols, data APIs and document file formats. We're nice guys now, EU... See?

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Microsoft's OOXML tactics come under EU scrutiny

Microsoft Subnet — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 19:48:15 -0500

The number of probes the European Union has launched investigating Microsoft has increased to three, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. The EU began an investigation into Microsoft's activities over its attempt to get Office Open XML adopted as an International Standards Organization (ISO) standard.

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Samba's Nose Allowed Under Microsoft Tent

Mitchell Ashley — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 02:40:06 -0500

If you've worked with Linux in a Microsoft shop, you've probably used the open source Samba server software at some point in time. Samba is an extremely useful Linux server tool that eases the integration and communications with Windows operating system hosts. But it's become increasingly difficult for Samba to support Windows Server protocols leaving few options for maintaining support with new Windows based products.

The EU ruling against Microsoft is attempting to fix that.

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Microsoft and AntiTrust

Kerrie Meyler — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 03:31:19 -0400

On September 17, 2007, the European Court of First Instance (the second-highest court in Europe) rejected Microsoft's attempt to overturn a landmark European Commission 2004 antitrust ruling and record fine. Not only is this a blow to Microsoft, but it also is not good news to several other U.S. tech giants that have run afoul of E.U. regulators in recent years. Intel is being investigated for the way it prices its computer chips, Apple's pricing of music downloads is under scrutiny, and Google's planned buyout of advertising giant DoubleClick has raised concerns over the search giant's ability to set ad rates in the digital world.

Let's take a quick look at the Microsoft and the antitrust cases in the EU. There were two issues / rulings:

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EU official: Microsoft's behavior 'unacceptable'

Microsoft Subnet — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 13:05:24 -0400

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