3 ms·
I think that this time around it's not actually something that falls under US antitrust law. At the time of the 2001 IE antitrust suit, Internet Explorer had 90
by mumblemumble 3y ago
I think that this time around it's not actually something that falls under US antitrust law. At the time of the 2001 IE antitrust suit, Internet Explorer had 90% browser marketshare and was using it to prop up the dominance of Windows as well. Many websites relied on IE-only features such as ActiveX controls, so you could get shut out of things if you didn't use IE, which in turn meant you'd be shut out of them if you didn't use Windows.
Nowadays, Microsoft's behavior is undeniably shitty. But Edge's 10% or 15% marketshare is hardly a monopoly, so I don't think it falls under the jurisdiction of antitrust laws. Though I certainly wouldn't cry to find out that it falls under some other kind of consumer protection law.
- lxgr 3y agoYes, antitrust is probably not the best conceptual framework to think about the problems arising from having several very similar vertically integrated platforms. The EU's upcoming Digital Markets Act seems to more explicitly target that problem – I'm very curious how that will go.
- dmitrygr 3y ago> The EU's upcoming Digital Markets Act seems to more explicitly target that problem You are naive if you think that this is what DMA is about. DMA is simply about Europe squeezing some money out of American companies. This is evident in the design and how carefully it was written to capture as many American companies and as few European ones as possible.
- dijit 3y agoWasnt it that IE was being pushed by the monopoly desktop operating system. afaik, thats still the case.
- wnoise 3y agoI had thought that the argument was that bundling was more using Windows (near monopoly) to prop up IE usage, rather than vice-versa. If in 2001 (with no smartphones), IE only runs on Windows, it's kind of hard to have IE have a _higher_ share of the market than Windows.