Re:EU Lays Groundwork for Antitrust Charges Against Google
by mike_hearn on Thursday April 02, 2015 @12:58PM
(#9311908)
Microsoft made that argument, and in the end it seems to have been right given that all OSs now ship with a built in browser.
What really screwed them over and resulted in the big judgements was their contracts with OEMs that said they couldn't ship any competing browser without losing the big MS discount (i.e. getting fined). Credit card companies did the same thing. Being bundled or up front isn't really the problem, it seems, but cutting financial deals to make using a competitor too expensive is where the legal pain starts.
I've heard Google are doing such things as well, with Android. But I don't know the details of that. It'd be a different complaint than this one which resolves around search results.
What really screwed them over and resulted in the big judgements was their contracts with OEMs that said they couldn't ship any competing browser without losing the big MS discount (i.e. getting fined). Credit card companies did the same thing. Being bundled or up front isn't really the problem, it seems, but cutting financial deals to make using a competitor too expensive is where the legal pain starts.
I've heard Google are doing such things as well, with Android. But I don't know the details of that. It'd be a different complaint than this one which resolves around search results.