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Man, I don't get it. I have a lot of problems with the (imo anti-competitive) behavior of big tech companies, but the bundling of Teams is among the least of my

Man, I don't get it. I have a lot of problems with the (imo anti-competitive) behavior of big tech companies, but the bundling of Teams is among the least of my concerns. What about App Stores and API availability? What about constantly preferring and promoting first-party offers (required accounts, MS Edge, Bing, Apple iCloud)? All the platform leverage they're more or less starting to abuse to lock users into "services" only they can provide. THOSE are problems that are limiting competition and getting worse and worse. They're really, entirely; unapologetically holding users hostage and more or less forcibly extracting rent from them (hey, your iCloud is full!). Yet the EU steps in in these what feel like token ways. A bit like the recent Apple move of ("We support right to repair ... at authorized service providers, for repairs we approve"). I know of the Digital Markets Act, but haven't yet seen a hint that it will limit rent-seeking by platform providers (worse yet: the idea has been floated that Apple may still be able to do it on third-party app stores, completely circumventing the point of the law, just like "legitimate interest" has for GDPR!). I love my little EU and its general (verbal) attitude towards consumer and market protection. But there's a lot more talk than there is walk. I hope this will change at some point - the direction is still the right one, after all.

Sakos 3y ago
> but the bundling of Teams is among the least of my concerns. I don't understand this point of view. We should be addressing all forms of anti-competitive behavior. This included. The fact that this is being addressed at all even though it's a "minor" (which is laughable, considering it's Microsoft, one of the biggest tech companies in the world) issue is an incredibly positive event. I look forward to further anti-competitive behavior being looked at, whether Microsoft or Google or whoever else.
- Incipient 3y ago
  Going after things that are technically anti-competitive, but realistically aren't particularly major, is a problem. Everyone thinks "yep we're doing our job, making a difference!" and stops there. Like a government going after tax evasion "we stopped Frank from claiming an air freshener in his car, so we're saving the economy!" while Facebook farms billions in profits offshore. Fixing something small has the risk of creating a facades of activity/effectiveness when in reality its still 90% broken.
  - Sakos 3y ago
    > and stops there. What makes you think that's happening? This is just one of multiple things the EU has done and is doing about anti-competitive behavior. The EU has been doing far more than the US on this front. Don't mistake US complacency with the EU's efforts. It feels like you want to let "lesser" evils go in favor of just the "big" ones. Don't you see how immoral and problematic that is? > but realistically aren't particularly major Your opinion and not fact. It seems quite major to me.
DanielHB 3y ago
I imagine the reason is that bundling things for free is a lot easier to argue and prove in court. Promoting "first-party offers" is a lot harder. Note that in most jurisdictions promoting first party offers and bundling is not illegal, what is illegal is to use your monopoly in an area to push competitors out of another. Bundling free things with Office is a pretty clear example of this. Office has essentially a monopoly in enterprise office text documents, presentation software and spreadsheets Promoting Edge in Windows is not such a clear case, Windows doesn't have a monopoly anymore if you account for phones and macos iOS App Store shennenigans can always be argued that Apple doesn't have a monopoly in smartphones and smartphones application stores I know all of this example should sound "obvious abusive behaviour" but you have to remember these things need to be proven in a court of law and if the defendant, even if 100% in the wrong, can drag out a case they will. Therefor it is not worth for the bureaucrats to chase them, it is easier to petition the legislators for more broad laws to make persecution easier first
Kbelicius 3y ago
> worse yet: the idea has been floated that Apple may still be able to do it on third-party app stores, completely circumventing the point of the law, just like "legitimate interest" has for GDPR! Can you share that idea? How can one use "legitimate interest" to circumvented GDPR legally?

Sakos 3y ago

> but the bundling of Teams is among the least of my concerns. I don't understand this point of view. We should be addressing all forms of anti-competitive behavior. This included. The fact that this is being addressed at all even though it's a "minor" (which is laughable, considering it's Microsoft, one of the biggest tech companies in the world) issue is an incredibly positive event. I look forward to further anti-competitive behavior being looked at, whether Microsoft or Google or whoever else.

Incipient 3y ago
Going after things that are technically anti-competitive, but realistically aren't particularly major, is a problem. Everyone thinks "yep we're doing our job, making a difference!" and stops there. Like a government going after tax evasion "we stopped Frank from claiming an air freshener in his car, so we're saving the economy!" while Facebook farms billions in profits offshore. Fixing something small has the risk of creating a facades of activity/effectiveness when in reality its still 90% broken.
- Sakos 3y ago
  > and stops there. What makes you think that's happening? This is just one of multiple things the EU has done and is doing about anti-competitive behavior. The EU has been doing far more than the US on this front. Don't mistake US complacency with the EU's efforts. It feels like you want to let "lesser" evils go in favor of just the "big" ones. Don't you see how immoral and problematic that is? > but realistically aren't particularly major Your opinion and not fact. It seems quite major to me.

DanielHB 3y ago

I imagine the reason is that bundling things for free is a lot easier to argue and prove in court. Promoting "first-party offers" is a lot harder. Note that in most jurisdictions promoting first party offers and bundling is not illegal, what is illegal is to use your monopoly in an area to push competitors out of another. Bundling free things with Office is a pretty clear example of this. Office has essentially a monopoly in enterprise office text documents, presentation software and spreadsheets Promoting Edge in Windows is not such a clear case, Windows doesn't have a monopoly anymore if you account for phones and macos iOS App Store shennenigans can always be argued that Apple doesn't have a monopoly in smartphones and smartphones application stores I know all of this example should sound "obvious abusive behaviour" but you have to remember these things need to be proven in a court of law and if the defendant, even if 100% in the wrong, can drag out a case they will. Therefor it is not worth for the bureaucrats to chase them, it is easier to petition the legislators for more broad laws to make persecution easier first

Kbelicius 3y ago

> worse yet: the idea has been floated that Apple may still be able to do it on third-party app stores, completely circumventing the point of the law, just like "legitimate interest" has for GDPR! Can you share that idea? How can one use "legitimate interest" to circumvented GDPR legally?