Taym,

We appear to be talking past each other, and I apologize for my part in doing so. Possibly due to interleaving our opinions into factual statements of what the legal systems in both regions has done.

We both agree Microsoft had a dominant position in the OS space. Both the EU and US have laws that only come into effect when a dominant (or monopoly to use a different word) position is established. Our split with our opinions seems to be focused around the EU action against Microsoft and IE.

My personal bias comes from seeing first hand how IE caused a lot of turmoil and reduced competition not only in browser choice, but also computer choice. And then having first hand experience seeing Google do similar with Android as both a former consumer and developer.

We both agree that dominant positions are legal (though how Microsoft obtained it was judged illegal). I used the term connected as both the US and EU had separate investigations to decide if Windows was dominant, which then enabled cases against Microsoft about other areas to go forward. In the US in particular, many different cases from various states were collapsed into the federal case.


Much of my discussion here is to help others understand the reason the EU is starting these Android and Search cases. The search one is due to the laws in both regions seeing their search success as a dominant position. The FTC investigation calls out Googles behavior as being harmful to consumers, but they stood by their recommendation of not launching a formal case against them. The split now is that the FTC feels the settlement from 2013 is good enough, while the EU does not.

The Android case first has to determine if Android has a dominant position as well, so more of that case up front will focus on that aspect before moving to possible abuses from a dominant position.

-tom