shame, shame, shame, Microsoft - when will you ever learn?
My understanding is that when they came out with win7 SP1, a bug prevented the EU browser choice thing from being offered through Microsoft Update. When MS found out about it they notified the EU regulators. Yes, they should have caught it earlier, but at the same time I can't help wondering, if it was such a big deal, why hadn't anyone noticed long, long ago?
They should just give up Browsers altogether - over the years Internet Explorer has been the source of more problems (and fines) than any other product in the Microsoft lineup.
IMO, & purely FWIW, it's just politics -- if ie wasn't a target the politicians would have just found another one. At one time -- don't know if they still are -- the U.S. gov was going after Google, which entailed a strategy of 1st building up public support for some sort of actions against them, then once the public supported it, bringing out the legal case they'd carefully prepared over the years. Since then Google has increased their lobbying & campaign donations etc., & I haven't heard about it in the news any longer. If you're cynical enough, might even wonder if that wasn't the actual purpose of the gov leaking the info in the 1st place, i.e. that they were going after Google.
At any rate, no gov can rule without the support of at least a good sized portion of the population -- even dictators -- so it's VERY important to show the people that there are benefits to letting the current gov rule. A huge part of that is demonstrating how you're protecting the population -- after all, that's THE purpose of any gov -- so governments [politicians & bureaucrats] pick out, sometimes invent targets, things that they can show they're protecting you from. Big corporations can make great targets -- it's relatively easy to drum up sentiment against targeted corporations, & they can afford the payoff. The hardest part is finding a big enough corporation that hasn't already figured this out, hasn't already built up solid government connections -- in that respect MS & Google were rather naive I think, especially compared to Chrysler, GM, GE, Fiat etc., who have done worse things than MS with ie. The gov's got their eye on Facebook too [or at least their bank acct.] http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/aug/13/facebook-developers
