Commission Benchmarks of Microsoft in the Big Tech Era: High-Tax Embedding, Mobile App Development, and Customer Choice

The European Commission charged Apple last week with breaking the new European Union’s digital markets act because they failed to let app developers communicate freely with their users. Over the past decade, the EU has become the de facto Big Tech regulator, forcing US giants to alter the way they operate and issuing fines of billions of dollars.

The commission is able to impose fines of up to 10 percent of the company’s annual worldwide turnover and even impose remedies if Microsoft and the EU cannot reach an agreement.

If Microsoft was found guilty of antitrust violations, the company could face a hefty fine. The European Commission has the power to force Microsoft to make changes to its software products.

In 2004 the European Commission ordered Microsoft to offer a version of Windows without Media Player bundled, which resulted in a Windows XP N version available only in EU markets. In 2009 Microsoft was also forced to implement a browser ballot box in its Windows operating system to ensure users were presented with a choice of web browsers, after years of Microsoft bunding Internet Explorer with Windows. The browser ballot in the Windows 7 servicebulletin was not included and was fined by Microsoft.

Brussels has accused Microsoft of illegally abusing its dominance in the business-software market at the expense of smaller rivals, following a complaint at the height of the pandemic by US competitor Slack.

On Tuesday, Sabastian Niles described the European Commission position as a win for customer choice and an endorsement that Microsoft’s practices with Teams have harmed competition.