EU “Charges” Microsoft Over The Browser Ballot Screen

By | October 24, 2012 | 4 Comments

EU To Charge Microsoft Over The Browser Ballot ScreenOr so the press says.

As reported earlier, due to some technical issues, the European version of the Windows 7 SP1 did not have a browser ballot screen for many months. Even though the software giant has since apologized for the glitch, it looks like it won’t be left unnoticed.

Now, as reported by Engadget, Microsoft will indeed be charged. According to the terms of agreement and the overall mood, Microsoft might face a fine of as much as $7.4 billion or 10 percent of its annual turnover.

And if you are wondering whether or not we wrote a similar article some months ago, we did. However, this time the EU has issued the official statement, which can be read in the following page.

In the meantine, Microsoft has issued a yet another response, apologizing again and again for the software glitch, saying, that, “We take this matter very seriously and moved quickly to address this problem as soon as we became aware of it. Although this was the result of a technical error, we take responsibility for what happened, and we are strengthening our internal procedures to help ensure something like this cannot happen again. We sincerely apologize for this mistake and will continue to cooperate fully with the Commission.”

And the drama continues…


About (Author Profile)


Vygantas is a former web designer whose projects are used by companies such as AMD, NVIDIA and departed Westood Studios. Being passionate about software, Vygantas began his journalism carrier back in 2007 when he founded FavBrowser.com. Having said that, he is also an adrenaline junkie who enjoys good books, fitness activities and Forex trading.

  • James

    Oh come on. I hate Microsoft as much as the next person, but this is uncalled for imo. sure, they screwed up, but they’ve since resolved the issue. They are not the rotten Apple here. iOS offers you only 1 option, crummy old Safari/Webkit. Why aren’t the other major Vendors held to this standard? This is more about bailing out the EU and less about punishing Microsoft. Shame on the EU.

    • Mancho

      Other vendors aren’t held to the same standard because they didn’t abuse a near-monopoly in one market to coerce control of another market. Honestly, I don’t know how people keep asking the same question. It’s as if people are willfully ignorant about this.

      • James

        I understand the history around the subject, and totally agree that MS was (and still is to a lesser degree) a monopolistic entity that needs to be kept in check. But no more than Google or Apple. And the issues that are pursuant to this were actions taken almost 10 yrs ago. Its time to move on. Yeah, its stupid of them to screw up like this considering they only have till 2014, but still, the web is a diff place than it was when all this went down. We need to hold everyone to the same standard.

        • Mancho

          The complaint at issue was raised in 2009. The browser ballot screen was introduced early 2010. Less than a year later, the ballot screen disappeared, and would continue to be neglected for more than a year. Yes, it is tangentially related to issues brought up nearly 10 years ago, but Microsoft has been dealing with those issues continuously since then, and as recently as June of this year. Let’s not pretend MS has been playing nice since 2003, so we should let it all go.

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