To make it clear, I’m not against antitrust legislation. If a company is disobeying the law (like Microsoft was in the previous antitrust charges from the DoJ in the US), then the company should suffer the consequences.

Microsoft was found guilty of antitrust violations in the US, paid the price, and everyone moved on.

The important thing is that the whole process has to be just and fair.

What I take issue with is that IMO, the way the current antitrust proceedings are progressing in the EC, it is not just and fair.

The way I interpret it is this: An incompetent European browser company who cannot gain any desktop market share whatsoever over the past decade (while upstarts like Firefox, Safari, and Chrome can), has no choice but to complain to the EC.

I bet if you asked Opera which of the following two outcomes they preferred: 1) Install Opera on every Windows PC or 2) Fine MS 2 billion dollars in the name of justice, they will prefer the former.

I doubt they really care about the consumers, when the consumers really are the ones antitrust legislation is supposed to protect.

Case in point. Microsoft’s solution of unbundling IE with Windows 7 addresses the antitrust charges in a simple and straightforward way. But Opera doesn’t like it, since that will do nothing for Opera’s business.

Unfortunately, being an European company, the EC has Opera’s ear a whole lot more than they have Microsoft’s…

However, Microsoft is guilty of repeatedly doing the same thing in other areas. I don’t recall that MS brought an antitrust against anyone, nor are they really in a position of doing that, but there are many ways government is used against competition. One example, for instance, are software patents and aggressive copyright related lawsuits through such organizations like BSA (which is a software equivalent to RIAA and MPAA from what I understand).

I know though you believe patents and copyrights are all fair game while antitrust isn’t, but really, in my book all of these are means of using the government to your ends instead of competing solely through the market.

All this however does not excuse one bit what Opera is doing. I’m just pointing out that MS isn’t completely innocent of similar strategies either, albeit they sure aren’t the only ones. Use of government against competitors is such a common tactic today that it’s considered normal, and people usually decry it only when they’re the ones targeted. It’s a man eat man world unfortunately.

I hope it wont be that way forever though.

Regards

not only that, now that they’re getting left behind in the browse warsr, they’re getting into practices of dubious legality; they’re turning their browser into a peer to peer server.

move over lime-wire, when you want illegal goods sing the opera tune.

Get your facts straight:

Opera was the one who filed the antitrust complaints all the way back in 2007:

http://www.opera.com/press/releases/2007/12/13/

Mozilla and Google didn’t join in the fun until April earlier this year (2009), and only as a third-party status.

Meaning these are interested parties, but it’s still basically an antitrust case between Opera vs. Microsoft:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=2527

If it wasn’t for Opera’s ineptitude in promoting its own browser, this whole thing wouldn’t have happened.

Mozilla and Google, unlike Opera, actually have a good browser and decent enough marketing that grew market share over the past decade.

You’re making a fool of yourself, Mozilla and Google are also in on it.