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"The European Commission has just announced that it has fined Microsoft \u20AC561 million ($731 million) for failing to comply with an earlier commitment to offer a 'browser ballot' screen for Windows users, offering them a choice of the browser they install within the European Union.\r\n\r\nThe Commission found that\u00A0Microsoft failed to roll out the browser choice screen with Windows 7 Service Pack 1 from May 2011 until July 2012. The Commission says that this means that 15 million Windows users in the EU did not see the choice screen during this period.\u00A0Microsoft has acknowledged this situation.\r\n\r\nMicrosoft received a formal complaint from the European Commission in October last year.\u00A0It had originally committed to make a browser ballot screen available for five years (ending in 2014), allowing users to choose \u201Cin an informed and unbiased manner which web browser(s) they wanted to install in addition to, or instead of, Microsoft\u2019s web browser.\u201D This followed EU investigations into\u00A0Internet Explorer\u2019s dominance in the browser market.\r\n\r\nThe Commission's announcement today adds that the browser ballot has been successful and that\u00A084 million browsers were downloaded through it between its launch in February 2010 and November 2010. It notes that this\u00A0is the first time that the Commission has had to fine a company for non-compliance and that the &amp;quot;the gravity and duration of the infringement&amp;quot; were considered when\u00A0calculating the fine.\r\n\r\n&amp;quot;A failure to comply is a very serious infringement that must be sanctioned accordingly,&amp;quot;\u00A0Commission Vice President in charge of competition policy Joaqu\u00EDn Almunia says in the announcement.\r\n\r\nWe've contacted Microsoft for their comment on the matter and will update if we receive one.\r\n\r\nUpdate: Microsoft says that it will not challenge the Commission's ruling, attributing the problem to a technical error:\r\n\u201CWe take full responsibility for the technical error that caused this problem and have apologized for it.\u00A0 We provided the Commission with a complete and candid assessment of the situation, and we have taken steps to strengthen our software development and other processes to help avoid this mistake \u2013 or anything similar \u2013 in the future.\u201D\r\nImage credit: Kevork Djsezian / Getty Images"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://thenextweb.com/microsoft/2013/03/06/microsoft-fined-731m-for-failing-to-comply-with-its-eu-browser-ballot-commitments/>