Back in July, Microsoft thought they had a pretty solid compromise to put before EU regulators with their web browser ballot screen. Concerns were raised throughout the process -- first by Opera and later by Mozilla's brass -- but it looks as though the EU is giving Microsoft the go-ahead.

According to Nelie Kroes, European Commissioner for Competition Policy, the ballot screen will include the twelve most popular browsers in the EU. To make the cut, a browser must be among the top dozen in usage share in the EU territory.

Kroes' spoke favorably of Microsoft's efforts:

The Commission's preliminary view is that Microsoft's commitments would indeed address our competition concerns.

Microsoft's proposal in particular recognises the principle that consumers should be given a free and effective choice of web browser. It would empower all current and future users of Windows in Europe to choose which browser they wished to use. It would therefore have a direct and immediate impact on the market.

Does this mean we won't be hearing any more about this issue? Likely not. First and foremost, the deployment is being considered "market testing" at this point. On top of that, not much has changed since Opera first complained about the ballot screen and the install process also isn't as simple as Mozilla wanted it to be.

The approved screen will include "more information" buttons for each browser and download links, but that seems to have been enough to satisfy the EU. Microsoft has indeed enabled users to make a choice - figuring out how to get another browser completely installed is going to be up to the end user.

At least for now. The EU has included a review clause so the commission can ensure the ballot screen is "working properly" over the next five years.

Microsoft's struggle with the European Commission's demands regarding browser choice just never seems to end. Today's soap opera episode introduces another main character into the cast: Mozilla. Earlier this week, Harvey Anderson and Mitchell Baker, two highers-up of Mozilla and the Mozilla Foundation, blogged about concerns and issues they had about the fairness of Microsoft's proposed ballot screen.

Mitchell's post outlined how Internet Explorer remained "uniquely privileged" within Windows (no big surprise there) while Harvey argues various points with the technicalities of the design and functionality of the ballot screen concept.

If Mozilla's suggestions are taken into account for the final release of the ballot screen, users may be provided with a more seamless experience at the ballot screen itself, allowing users to not just download their choice of browser immediately, but also immediately install the chosen browser and set it as the default, with minimal or no extra work required on the part of the user. It could also require that Microsoft prevent future Internet Explorer updates from asking to set IE as the default browser.

Mozilla CEO John Lilly explained that these recently expressed viewpoints on browser choice are a part of Mozilla's plan to "get across our point of view," as he puts it. Mozilla is expected to officially voice their concerns to the EC soon, as final word on the ballot screen is expected before the end of October.

Hey, Microsoft! The EC heard you wanted to make a concession yesterday and were considering stripping IE8 from Windows 7 in Europe. Well, they've got two words for you: Nice try.

The Commission's press release this morning states "As for retail sales...the Commission had suggested to Microsoft that consumers be provided with a choice of web browsers. Instead Microsoft has apparently decided to supply retail consumers with a version of Windows without a web browser at all. Rather than more choice, Microsoft seems to have chosen to provide less."

Oddly, though, they also minimize the importance of the retail channel, noting that it accounts for a paltry 5% of sales.

On the OEM front, it's a another story: "As for sales to computer manufacturers, Microsoft's proposal may potentially be more positive. It is noted that computer manufacturers would appear to be able to choose to install Internet Explorer – which Microsoft will supply free of charge - another browser or multiple browsers."

Would appear to be able to choose? How would they not be able to choose which browser to load on an OS that ships browser-free? They choose to load plenty of other bloat right now, so dumping a browser or four on their PCs really shouldn't be too tough.

As for the beef with retail, Microsoft can't win that one. If they ship no browser, users have no way of downloading an alternative. If they choose to list some browsers, the companies who are passed over will cry foul - and there are a lot of people developing web browsers (see Wikipedia). The EC, of course, is pushing a 'ballot screen' though I've seen no mention of which browsers will appear on it or how they will be selected in a fair and impartial manner.

What it boils down to is that the EC wants to decide how bad a boy Microsoft has been since 1996 and what kind of penance it needs to do.

Pro tip, EC: Windows 7 is due to ship soon, and Microsoft is making an effort here (gasp!). Maybe it's time to come to a consensus already.

Holy about faces, Batman!

Credit yet another Microsoft-related leak with some truly interesting Windows 7 news. The EU is going to get their wish, and Microsoft will make special OEM and retail versions of Windows 7 available that are totally Internet Explorer free.

Here's the meaty part of the memo:

"Microsoft will offer IE8 separately and free of charge and will make it easy and convenient for PC manufacturers to preinstall IE 8 on Windows 7 machines in Europe if they so choose. PC manufacturers may choose to install an alternative browser instead of IE 8, and has always been the case, they may install multiple browsers if they wish."

Which means we probably haven't heard the last of the shouting just yet. It'll just be about unfairly leaning on manufacturers who decide to include Internet Explorer - even though they might choose to do so of their own free will. After all, a big portion of the general computer-purchasing public still doesn't know what the heck a Firefox is.

[via CNet]

There are plenty of things I'd love to quit reading about, and the EU's continued moaning about unfair browser bundling is pretty high on the list.

We get it. You (and a number of competitors) think Microsoft needs to do something more substantial than allow users to uninstall/disable/burn down Internet Explorer. Your latest fabulous idea? A download dashboard, which will present a number of browsers from which the consumer is free to choose. How Utopian!

So I presume this dashboard will include all kinds of browsers, like Maxthon, Flock, Arora, Lunascape, SRWare Iron, Kmeleon, and QTWeb, right? After all, including only big non-IE names like Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and Opera isn't really fair to the little guys. There's a big ol' list at Wikipedia if you need to see all the options the dashboard should include.

I'll also assume that this dashboard will be mandatory for all operating systems. Apple and Linux users probably need to be told they have a choice, too.

Oh, and devices like cell phones, PDAs, and MIDs usually only have one browser out-of-the-box, so make sure you put a stop to that as well.

You'll also need to tell Apple that they have to allow non-Webkit browsers on the iPhone and iPod touch, because that's unfair to browsers based on other rendering engines.

Because really, if you're not going to do all those things, it's time to shut up about this issue and quit singling out Microsoft.

[via Slashdot]

[via PC World]

European regulators have approved Google's plan to buy online advertising giant DoubleClick. The acquisition, which has been in the works for the better part of a year will solidify Google's dominance in the advertising field. Right now Google makes most of its money through its lucrative contextual advertising system. The DoubleClick acquisition will help Google move into display ads, an area where the company is currently not as strong.

Google competitors including Microsoft, Yahoo! had filed anti-trust complaints, claiming that the deal would give Google an unfair advantage in the online advertising marketplace. But EU regulators basically gave Google a pass and said the deal could go forward as is. Of course, if Microsoft manages to buy Yahoo!, (a company that has been playing hard to get), that might give Microsoft the tools to level the playing field. You know, assuming EU or US regulators don't nix the deal.

Update: According to the Official Google Blog, Google today completed its acquisition of DoubleClick.

[via TechCrunch]

After ruling that Microsoft has failed to comply with a 2004 antitrust order, the European Union has added $1.3 billion to the fines already owed by Microsoft. That brings the total to about $2.5 billion, or just slightly more than pocket change to Bill Gates.

A few years back, EU regulators had decided that Microsoft was abusing its position as the number one operating system provider by bundling software with Windows that would decrease competition. Wednesday the EU ruled that Microsoft hasn't done enough to remedy the situation

Microsoft released a statement pointing out that in October of 2007, the EU found that the company was "in full compliance with the 2004 decision," meaning that the fine relates to past misdeeds. This could explain why Microsoft made such a big show of launching an open standards initiative last week.

The European Union has faith in BitTorrent. So much so that it's donating $22 Million to help us be able to steal share files. The BBC is one of the biggest investors, figuring that since people download TV shows now anyway, they should probably try to get in on it. Which makes sense. Nobody watches TV on TV's anymore; it's like listening to music on CDs. And when you see someone walking around with a Discman, you judge them. Don't pretend that you don't.

One of the main goals of this project, which they're calling P2P-Next, is to create an open source, BitTorrent-compatible client that can be used for live streaming. Which could be great for getting decent quality streaming TV. None of this watching poor quality out of sync episodes with strange asian subtitles. The team developing the core technology is the folks behind the BitTorrent client Tribler. With a cool $22 Million from the EU, along with another $6 Million from other partners, this project seems to have the backing it needs to succeed. They are hoping to create an environment that encourages sharing, but removing share ratio sanctions and letting the users moderate the content. All of this is great news. Since anything that will let us pirate share files quicker and easier is downright exciting.

[Via TorrentFreak]

If you're a file pirate living in the EU, you may have reason to celebrate. Juliane Kokott, Advocate General to the European Court of Justice declared today that European ISPs cannot be forced to reveal the identity behind accounts identified for sharing copyright protected material.

The statement was directed to a panel of judges mulling over the legality of a Spanish file-sharing case, and could be a harbinger of things to come in the EU. Kokott's declaration essentially asserts that although ISPs can be required to turn over identities in criminal matters, file-sharing is a civil issue and therefor doesn't enjoy the same legal privileges.

The European Union's data protection advisory group sent a letter to Google this month asking why the company keeps records of user searches for up to two years.

The underlying issue here is whether Google and other search engines are violating users' privacy rights by maintaining search records, even if those records are used to improve the user experience by offering personalized search options. European Union investigators are also looking at the way Yahoo! and Microsoft store data.

Google is well aware that there are privacy concerns associated with its retention of search data, and is taking steps to anonymize data that is kept for more than 18 to 24 months. In other words, for about two years, the company will be able to track a particular user's search results. After that, the data will still be available, but there will be no way to associate it with a specific user.

It's taken two years for this to happen, but ODF has finally been approved as a standard format by the International Organization for Standardization. The OpenDocument Format is now poised to be readily adopted throughout Europe, as the EU recognizes the formats recognized by the ISO. BetaNews has the story, plus a great quote from ODF Alliance executive Director Mario Marcich, "We believe access to public records and essential services should never be restricted to users of a particular brand of software or computer platform." Word to that.

In his 2006 New Year's address, French President Jacques Chirac apparently focused on Quaero, a new search engine being built by "some of the top tech labs in France and Germany." The project is ambitious, to say the least, reportedly providing "an array of multimedia tools for identifying and indexing images, sound and text," including "a powerful translating tool which will be able to 'understand' audio as well as text," and available on mobile devices and digital TVs. Beyond that, the article is tantalizingly vague, and includes this less-than-promising passage: "The ambitious project will probably not be available anytime in the near future. Quaero is still in the earliest stages of development, so early that none of the major players have yet ventured a guess as to how much the project might cost. When Quaero does launch, it will have a great deal of catching up to do." Good luck with that, Chirac.

[Via Slashdot]