Legal News

Stop the Presses! Using Firefox In Europe To Get A Little Easier

By Ashby Jones

Doesn’t the whole antitrust battle over Internet browsers feel soooo 1998? Once upon a time, it may have been tough to work around Microsoft’s ubiquitous Internet Explorer. But these days, Mozilla’s Firefox and Google’s Chrome browsers are only a quick download away. And for years, new Macs have come with Apple’s Safari.

Is the issue really so much for antitrust regulators circa 2009 to get worked up about?

At least in Europe, the answer for years has been an emphatic yes. And today, the EU seemed to get what it wanted. The European Commission, the EU’s economic arm, dropped its case over browsers against Microsoft in exchange for a legally binding commitment from Microsoft to start marketing rivals’ browsers alongside its own Internet Explorer. Click here for the WSJ story; here for the Financial Times story; here for the NYT story.

How will Microsoft be forced to market rivals’ browsers? The company has promised to offer PC-users a “ballot screen” that will allow them to chose from a number of rival browsers. The commitment will be valid in the European Economic Area for five years.

Users of Microsoft's ubiquitous Windows operating system in Europe who have chosen its Internet Explorer as their default browser will receive in a software update an option to switch to a rival, starting next year.

"Millions of European consumers will benefit from this decision by having a free choice about which web browser they use," said the EC’s competition commissioner, Neelie Kroes, in a statement.

Closing the two cases cleans the slate for Microsoft in Brussels, having been fined over $2 billion by the European antitrust regulator for various antitrust breaches.

Congratulations Europe! Due to the EU trustbusters’ hard work, downloading Firefox may have just gotten marginally easier.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on December 16, 2009 (boomark / email).