Posts Tagged with “Microsoft”

Microsoft has used Windows to make competition in browsers difficult in a variety of ways that aren’t obviously apparent to a consumer. These techniques are generally apparent only to other developers. Some of these will seem small when considered alone. But taken together these add up to a significant burden for other browser makers, and a significant advantage to IE.

Windows has provided technical advantages to IE through techniques such as those listed below. This list is not meant to be conclusive. It is meant to illustrate the range of ways in which Windows can and has made it difficult for other browsers to provide a competitive experience on Windows.

• Making information available to IE before or differently than that information is available to others.
• Making it difficult for other browsers to access browsing information stored in Windows, thus making migration and syncing painful for users and difficult for other browser makers to implement well. This includes information such as formats and metadata related to IE favorites, website passwords, and website cookies.
• IE use of undocumented Windows APIs.
• Providing APIs to IE available to Windows developers as part of the “Windows” API. As a result applications developed by third party developers can send URLs directly to IE rather than to the browser the user has selected as his or her choice.
• Requiring the use of IE to use the Windows update service. (Microsoft appears to have phased out this practice, or to have provided alternatives. I include it as an illustration of the ways Microsoft has, and could again, use Windows to damage competition in the browser space.)

The ubiquity of Windows brings this artificial competitive advantage for IE to almost every single person using a personal operating system. Redressing this setting will help refocus competition on the merits of the browser itself.

To go further with this principle we should identify all the ways Windows provides technical advantages to IE. If you’ve got examples please feel free to leave them here (we’ll review comments to previous posts for examples already given) or provide them by whatever means you feel comfortable with.

As I look at this principle (“Windows can’t provide a technical advantage to IE”), I’m sure that there will be a set of comments asking (a) why can’t Microsoft do whatever it wants with Windows, and (b) if there are limits on Microsoft, what about Apple? So I’ve added this post to address those questions.

The answer is the monopoly status of the Windows operating system. With over 90% market share for a decade or so, the concern is that this dominance allows Windows to damage the structure of competition. This concern is reflected in anti-trust laws. So this would not apply to Apple unless and until Apple has a monopoly or dominant position with the desktop operating system (today its market share is in the single digits).

It may be that many of the people saying Microsoft should be able to do whatever it wants are both familiar with anti-trust law and reject the entire idea. That’s a different discussion than the one I’m focused on. I’ve focused on two topics that bracket the legal decisions:

1. Has the integration of IE into Windows damaged competition? Mozilla has more experience in this area than almost anyone (Opera being the other long term competitor), so I feel qualified to address this; and
2. How do we think about remedies? What kinds of remedies make sense, which are likely to cause unintended consequences?

There’s an obvious question in the middle of these: Does the harm caused by the integration of IE into Windows violate EU competition/anti-trust law? That’s the classic “application of law to the facts of a case” at the heart of a legal decision. I know a lot about the factual difficulties of competing but much less about the precise application of European Union law.

The EC has signaled its preliminary conclusion that the integration does violate EU law and that remedies are likely to be imposed. I feel it’s important to try to have our experience and expertise reflected in the EC’s deliberations. Thus my focus on the difficulties of competing with IE in the current setting, and on the principles that might guide our thinking on remedies.

In the last post I listed potential principles and noted I’d try to say a bit more about each. Here’s the first principle.

Principle: Microsoft must not undermine consumer selection of non-Microsoft browsers.

Rationale: Once a person has chosen Firefox or Opera or another browser this choice should be respected. Neither Windows nor IE should use the presence of IE to encourage or promote a return to IE, or to automatically open a different web browser than that which the user has selected. Otherwise, the monopoly presence of Windows on 90+% of the world’s personal computers means that people are forced to choose alternative products over and over again.

Some Specifics:

• Use of IE for operating system purposes cannot bleed into web browsing
• IE must close after OS purposes complete
• IE may not ask to become the default browser or make itself the default browser except in specified legitimate circumstances, like perhaps when a person downloads IE separately from Windows or from a Windows update

It will be useful to identify the ways in which Microsoft products — including Office, as suggesting in a previous comment — lead people to IE, or open IE as the browser even when another browser has been selected as the default. Feel free to add them here or let me know through other channels.

This post is a list of potential principles derived from the various discussions so far, plus a clarifying example or two for some of the principles.   In subsequent posts I’ll say a bit more about each potential principle and how it might be accomplished, though I’ll be equally happy if this post is enough to spur a good discussion.

These are identified as potential principles on purpose; this is not a list of Mozilla recommendations.   This list includes a spectrum of potential principles, some of which seem uncontroversial and some of which have already proved highly controversial.   We may also find agreement on a principle and a vigorous discussion on how to best implement it.  These potential principles are the beginning of a discussion, not the end.

Potential Principles

1. Windows cannot subvert a person’s choice of an alternative browser.

Some examples of what this might mean in practice:

• Windows cannot condition a person’s ability to stay secure and/ or update Windows on the use of IE
• Microsoft cannot condition a person’s ability to access the MS website or MS services on use of IE
• Use of IE for operating system purposes cannot bleed into web browsing
• Functionality of the operating system cannot be degraded for users of alternative browsers

2. Windows can’t provide a technical advantage to IE.
An example of what this might mean in practice:

• Microsoft must make all  API and access points that are available to IE available  to other browsers on the same terms

3.  Windows must enable people to choose other browsers.
Some examples of what this might mean in practice:

• Option to download other browsers must be presented when a user is updating IE
• Option to download other browsers must be presented when a user is updating Windows
• IE may not ask to become the default browser or make itself the default browser except  in specified legitimate circumstances, like perhaps when a person downloads IE separately from Windows or from a Windows update
• Windows must ship with alternative browsers installed and offer users a choice
• Windows may not include a browser (“untying” required).  (This implementation of the principle has some obvious drawbacks for users.)

4. Microsoft’s financial and other incentives to distributors must be browser-neutral.

5.  Microsoft must educate people about other browsers (or fines levied against Microsoft should be used to support open source projects and education).

6.  Microsoft tools for developing content must not produce IE specific or Windows-specific results.

7.  IE must meet specified web “standards.” (This request was included in Opera’s complaint, generally not well received by the Mozilla community.)

Update 2/26: Revised item 7 to better reflect Opera’s position:

7. IE must comply with web standards. (Opera has suggested that Microsoft must support web standards they have promised to support).

We’ve had a reasonably full discussion of the harm to browser innovation and competition caused by Microsoft’s activities. It’s time to turn to the question of an effective response from the EC. There’s already been a lot of back and forth on possible remedies, but I’d like to start from a different point.

Let’s start by identifying the principles that might underlay any potential remedy: What goal, or principle, do we hope a remedy accomplishes?

Actual remedies can then be derived from these principles. Any remedy is likely to end up being complex, detailed, perhaps procedural, and a topic of long discussions between the EC and Microsoft. We won’t all be able to be involved in these discussions, even if we have the time and focus. We can however, articulate principles that we believe a remedy should meet, that the interested lay person can understand, and that we can use to evaluate the remedies that are ultimately crafted.

I’ll identify some potential principles in my next post.