Microsoft has been fined €561 million by the European Union for failing to offer a choice of web browser to its customers.
Officials said it had broken a legally binding commitment to ensure that consumers had a choice of browser, rather than defaulting to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.
This is the first time the European Commission has fined a company for non-compliance with agreed commitments.
The EU said Microsoft had failed to honor that obligation in software issued between May 2011 and July 2012 which resulted in 15 million users never being made aware that they could choose which browser they wanted to use.
Joaquin Almunia, the EU’s competition commissioner, said: “Legally binding commitments reached in antitrust decisions play a very important role in our enforcement policy. “A failure to comply is a very serious infringement that must be sanctioned accordingly.”
If you think that €561m is a lot of money then it is but Microsoft could have been hit far harder – as much as $7.9 billion or up to 10 percent of its global turnover.
Mr Almunia said the fine was reduced because Microsoft had co-operated with the investigation.
Microsoft blamed the problem on a technical error.
It said: “We take full responsibility for the technical error that caused this problem and have apologized for it.
“We provided the Commission with a complete and candid assessment of the situation, and we have taken steps . . . to help avoid this mistake — or anything similar — in the future.”
Via: Daily Mail