Microsoft to remove browser on new release in Europe

The European Union (EU) said Friday that Microsoft's plans to remove its Web browser from the upcoming Windows 7 in Europe will result in fewer choices for the consumer.

Microsoft has been waiting for the European Commission, the EU's administrative branch, to rule on a complaint lodged in 2007 by browser maker Opera about Microsoft's practice of tying Internet Explorer to its operating system since 1996.

As the Oct. 22 launch date for Windows 7 nears, Microsoft said this week it hoped to solve the problem by removing the browser from Windows.

On Friday, the European Union said it "notes with interest" Microsoft's latest move, but repeated an earlier recommendation that the company provide a choice of browsers with Windows to offer "genuine consumer choice."

The commission was critical of Microsoft's decision to remove the browser from copies of Windows 7 that are sold off the shelf. "Microsoft has apparently decided to supply retail consumers with a version of Windows without a Web browser at all," the statement said. "Rather than more choice, Microsoft seems to have chosen to provide less."

It was more positive on Microsoft's decision to remove the browser from copies of Windows sold on new computers.

"As for sales to computer manufacturers, Microsoft's proposal may potentially be more positive," the statement said. "It is noted that computer manufacturers would appear to be able to choose to install Internet Explorer — which Microsoft will supply free of charge — another browser or multiple browsers."

While Microsoft dominates 65.5 percent of the market with Internet Explorer, according to a report from NetApplication in May, competing browsers developed by Mozilla, Google, Apple and Opera have been eating away at Microsoft's lead for the past few years, especially Firefox.

Richard Zerbe, a professor of public policy at the University of Washington, said Europe's insistence that Microsoft invite competitors into Windows points out differences between American and European antitrust law.

"The American antitrust position generally is that it's aimed at consumer protection; it's not aimed at protecting competitors from each other," Zerbe said. "There's some sentiment that the European system is slanted more than we are toward protecting competitors from each other."

Zerbe, an economist who brought charges against Microsoft with the Federal Trade Commission while working at a Washington, D.C., law firm in the 1990s, said Microsoft's position now contradicts what it claimed in its antitrust battle with the U.S. Department of Justice. In that lawsuit, Microsoft claimed that removing the browser from Windows would break the operating system.

Sharon Pian Chan: 206-464-2958 or schan@seattletimes.com