EU Reviews Microsoft, ContentGuard Deal
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The European Commission said Friday it has resumed its antitrust review of an investment by Microsoft Corp. and Time Warner Inc. in anti-piracy software company ContentGuard Inc.
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The European Commission plans to send official objections to a proposed joint takeover of ContentGuard Holdings by Microsoft and Time Warner, according to Reuters. ContentGuard offers technology to prevent copying of protected files and has created eXtensible rights Markup Language (XrML), which it is pushing for industry adoption.
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BRUSSELS, Belgium  -- European Union regulators said Monday they were investigating whether software giant Microsoft Corp. used its market dominance to squeeze out office software and Internet browser rivals.
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Microsoft has made substantial concessions to the European Commission, finally bringing the company into compliance with a&#160;2004 antitrust ruling, the Commission said Monday.&quot;Microsoft has finally agreed to three substantial changes to bring them into compliance with the decision,&quot; the Commission said in a statement.Following the 2004 ruling, Microsoft paid a fine of &#8364;497 million (around $600 million) and published a version of its Windows XP operating system without a bundled media player. The Commission also ordered a third remedy, that Microsoft publish details of the communications protocols used by its server operating system products to communicate with one another and with its desktop clients.The Commission was initially&#160;unhappy with Microsoft&#39;s response&#160;to the third remedy, fining it an additional &#8364;280.5 million last year, but has now reached agreement with the company. One of the sticking points was how open source software developers could make use of the communications protocol information Microsoft published.The first change the company has agreed to is that open source software developers will be able to access and use the interoperability information, as required in the 2004 ruling.Second, the royalties payable for this information will be reduced to a nominal one-off payment of &#8364;10,000 and third, the royalties for a worldwide license, including patents, will be sharply reduced, the Commission said.
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p2pnet.net News:- European Union antitrust regulators will launch an investigation into whether or not the proposed Microsoft-Time Warner joint acquisition of a US DRM company will strengthen Microsoft&#39;s &quot;already leading position&quot; in the DRM solutions
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The European Commission plans to open  an in-depth, four-month probe of plans by Microsoft Corp. and  Time Warner Inc. to acquire joint control of U.S. ContentGuard  Holdings Inc., a source close to the situation said on Tuesday.
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The European Commission has opened a probe into Microsoft&#39;s and Time Warner&#39;s plans to buy anti-piracy software manufacturer ContentGuard.
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DRM software stops digital files from being copied and has already seen heavy investment from Time Warner, Microsoft and Sony. Before the buy-out in April, the majority owner of ContentGuard
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By David Lawsky BRUSSELS  - The European Commission has stopped the clock on its review of Microsoft and Time Warner's purchase of U.S. anti-piracy software maker ContentGuard, a spokesman for the EU executive said on Tuesday.
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BRUSSELS -- The European Commission has "stopped the clock" on its antitrust investigation into digital rights management software maker ContentGuard, a joint venture between Microsoft and Time Warner, pending further information on the deal, it announced on Wednesday.
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Microsoft must comply with behavioral remedies imposed by the European Commission, but observers are skeptical of the difference they will make.
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(InfoWorld) - The European Commission has again criticized Microsoft's response to a 2004 antitrust ruling, opening up the possibility of further fines for the company. In March 2004,Â the Commission fined MicrosoftÂ and ordered it to provide its competitors with information allowing them to develop workgroup server software interoperable Windows desktop operating system. It thenÂ fined the company againÂ last July for failing to provide that information on time. The Commission has sent Microsoft another statement of objections, saying it considers the interoperability information Microsoft has offered is still incomplete, said Jonathan Todd, Commission spokesman on competition issues. In addition, Microsoft is charging its competitors too much for that information: it does not justify the price tag put on it because it is not innovative, he said. Microsoft has four weeks in which to respond to the statement of objections, after which it may face further daily fines for noncompliance with the antitrust ruling. Even as Microsoft and the Commission dispute whether Microsoft is in compliance with the ruling, another court is considering whether Microsoft should have to comply at all. The European Court of First Instance, in Luxembourg, is still considering Microsoft's appeal against the Commission's March 2004 ruling that Microsoft abused its monopoly in desktop operating systems to exploit markets for workgroup server and media player software. At that time, the Commission ordered Microsoft to pay a fine of â¬497 million (then around $600 million), ship a version of Windows without media player software, and publish the server software interoperability information disputed in today's announcement. (Peter Sayer, in Paris, contributed to this report.)
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European competition regulators met on  Monday to discuss the amount of a fine it will impose on  software giant Microsoft  for failing to comply with a  European Commission antitrust decision.
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BREAKING NEWS - The European Court of First Instance in Luxembourg has ruled against Microsoft in its appeal of a March 2004 finding of the European Commission. In so doing, the Court upholds the EC's finding that Microsoft abused its dominant market position in Europe, first by failing to supply access to its protocols for enabling interoperability with its communications software in Windows and Windows Server, and second by bundling its Media Player with Windows XP.
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The European Union has launched a 45 million euro ($60 million) plan to protect children from pornography and racist sites when they surf the Internet.
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Microsoft Corp. will be ready to comply with the European Commission&#39;s demands for changes to its Windows operating systems if a European court rejects its request for the measures to be suspended, a spokesman for the company said Monday.
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The European Commission has set out its formal objections to Microsoft and Time Warner taking control of digital rights management company ContentGuard Holdings.