“Google is seeking to play a part in the European Commission’s investigation into Microsoft for anti-competitive behaviour, a move that represents a significant escalation in ‘browser wars’ and the battle over how users view the internet,” Murad Ahmed reports for The Times Online.
“Yesterday, Google sought permission from European Union regulators to submit arguments in an anti-trust case against Microsoft. Google aims to join those companies already taking part in the ongoing inquiry into the software giant’s dominance of the internet browser market,” Ahmed reports.
“Regulators have been investigating Microsoft for more than a year, following a complaint by the makers of the Norwegian web browser Opera, which claimed that Microsoft’s practice of bundling Internet Explorer in with Windows put competitors at an unfair disadvantage,” Ahmed reports.
“The charges are similar to those Microsoft faced in 2004, when it lost a European anti-trust case and was forced to sell a version of Windows without its Media Player software. It was hit with a record fine of €497 million,” Ahmed reports.
“According to the internet statistics specialist Net Applications, Internet Explorer was used by 68% of web users worldwide in January. This compared with a 22% market share for Mozilla’s Firefox , 8.3% for Apple’s Safari, 1.1% for Google’s Chrome, and 0.7% for Opera,” Ahmed reports.
Full article here.
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