Microsoft is reported to be delighted that Yahoo! is softening its resistance to being taken over by it. Together, the two American companies might be able to challenge fellow American Google?s dominance of the online search market. This will be good for Internet competition, and may even shield Microsoft from what many see as a relentless campaign by the EU?s antitrust authorities against its alleged abuses of the dominant position it has in the computer software market. Last month, Microsoft was slapped with a $1.3 billion fine by the EU for its failure to comply with a 2004 ruling. This sum is not even a tenth of the profits made by it in fiscal 2007 (about $14 billion on sales of $51 billion), but it does pinch. Also, a hunch has reportedly taken hold that the EU?s competition authorities are hellbent on penalising it for monopolistic practices from time to time.
Seen together with the news of a European court denying the use of the brand Gmail in Europe to Google, which runs a famous email service under that name, because a German firm already owns the name locally, it may seem that the EU bears a grudge against American control of computer technology. Is this just a figment of transatlantic paranoia? Or is there something to it? The latest fine on Microsoft was for sneaking around the 2004 EU order, which asked it to sell Windows? interoperability protocols at a reasonable price to other companies so that they could also make software to run on this operating system, and to market a version of it that does not have its media player bundled along, so that competitors have a chance to sell such media software. Microsoft allegedly sold the protocols at prices that were too prohibitive for most other companies, and put an ?unbundled? version of Windows on its sales list at the same price as the bundled version, thus defeating the EU order?s objectives. This is too clever by half, and the EU authorities are justified in their indignation, even if they should word their rulings better. The Gmail case is harder to assess, with global sense ranged against local law. It is representative, perhaps, of the fear that ?glob-oogle-isation? will give Google excessive control of information flows. But if this is the case, then this issue should be addressed head on, not through minor matters of dominance.
