back to article EC competition commissioner slams US dissing

Competition Commissioner 'Steely' Neelie Kroes hit back at US politicians who criticised this week's verdict from the Court of First Instance. On Monday the court roundly rejected Microsoft's appeal of anti-trust charges and upheld the decision to fine the software giant €497m, forcing it to change its behaviour in Europe. …

COMMENTS

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  1. Will Godfrey Silver badge

    Bully Boys

    Come on Reg. This has already appeared on /. and groklaw (and a few other places).

    NEway,

    So the playground bully (microsoft) can't get it's way and goes running home to its big brother, another playground bully. Thing is, it's the wrong playground.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Do what we say or the GPS signal will be cut

    Just shows you unreliable a partner the USA is right now.

    If we're dependent on GPS, then they have leverage over us, and although he's using words and implied threats now, there could come a time when USA threatens to cut the GPS signal, or even DNS routing if we don't do what they say.

    Rather than rely on them, we should build our own GPS system and cooperate from a position of strength.

  3. Vladimir Plouzhnikov

    Who is discouraging competition?

    "...harming consumers by chilling innovation and discouraging competition."

    There is nothing in the world more chilling to innovation and discouraging competition than the US IP laws and the patent system.

    And innovation from Microsoft is an oxymoron. But DOJ knows that, surely, they just need to go through the motions that MSFT has paid them for...

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Mammon fhtagn!

    Dontcha know that the jurisdiction of the USA encompasses all of the mercantilist interests of Companies With US-American Shareholders?

    Damn Europeans, a CIA-mounted coup will emerge from our hallowed embassies in a few hours, like a Great Ancient One one let loose by a transdimensional summoning.

    Prepare your vaseline!

  5. Andy

    Fashion angle?

    I was wondering where the fashion angle was but your last paragraph seems to have that one zipped up.

    Coat...

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Barnett - an MS Sock Puppet?

    Thomas O. Barnett was until 2004 a top antitrust partner at a law firm that has represented Microsoft in several antitrust disputes.

    Mr Barnett also has "previous" - he sent a memo to to state attorneys general around the US about Google's recent complain about the Windows Search in Vista. In the memo he suggested they dropped any enquiry.

    So basically this man will say and do ANYTHING for the company who have obviously put quite a lot of money into his bank account.

    Banana republics - who needs them ?

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Run, on hold we're safe.

    "CIA-mounted coup will emerge from our hallowed embassies in a few hours"

    Few, thank god for that, thought there was a real threat then. They'll give us 3 months notice that they are on their way.

  8. yorick

    zipmakers vs microsoft

    who's laughing. zipmakers get find 300m euro Microsoft 400m euro.

    damn. poor Microsoft.

  9. RW

    Re: Mammon fhtagn!

    "Prepare your vaseline!"

    How incredibly retro. Surely all up to date Registerites know that water-based slicknesses are The Thing these days.

    Google "J-lube" for gory details.

  10. atlantic

    Waa...

    Sniff sniff...

    That mean old bully exercised his right to free speech.

    Waaaaaa Waaaaaa

    Grow up babies

  11. Sabahattin Gucukoglu

    Alternative (Non-US) Root Nameservers

    http://www.orsn.org/

    Based in Europe, principally; the only US server is being run by, of all people, Paul Vixie. Great service, sensible policy: track ICANN unless they go bad, in which case stop tracking ICANN. Yours for the princely sum of exactly zero of your chosen currency. :-) To get going, download the root hints and set up as a hint zone for "." in your nameserver, or you can patch/configure your nameserver software to get that effect. I've got djbdns and bind nameservers to use it just fine.

    Cheers,

    Sabahattin

  12. Daniel

    @Will Godfrey

    Can you please file this in the circular bin along with all the other "please on please don't run articles on this topic that bores me oh register!!!" complaints. Some of us come to El Reg as our PRIMARY source of IT news, and a secondary source for news in general. I for one never read slashdot.

    Keep it coming, Vultures.

    -daniel

  13. David

    Free speech

    <quote>Sniff sniff...

    That mean old bully exercised his right to free speech.

    Waaaaaa Waaaaaa

    Grow up babies</quote>

    The babies are exercising their right to free speech too.

    :)

  14. yeah, right.

    Expected really.

    I mean, come on. The US government lives to service their major corporations. Might as well accept that any US Federal department is basically just a P.R. department for US corporations. So their outburst was totally expected, and just as totally misplaced. But they have to try, or their lords and masters in corporate land get all huffy and start crying.

  15. Andy Enderby

    I wish....

    ... someone would stifle their ability to distribute half baked ruins like Vista.

  16. b shubin

    Not so free with the speech

    it is free speech when a private citizen says it. this is VERY different.

    this is paid commercial speech, from a senior official of the US judicial system.

    the Assistant AG is NOT a private citizen, he speaks as a government employee, or in this case, a corporate whore who should have kept his gob shut, because of his obvious conflict of interest. it is this sort of behavior (well, besides Gitmo and the like) that makes the US Department of Justice look like such a partisan, corporatist joke.

    he should have looked up "recuse" in the dictionary, then did what it says. the political implications of his statement just make it worse, especially considering how touchy the EU can be about its sovereignty. newly minted political entities tend to be that way until they mature (yes, i am older than the EU).

    to be fair, he is a fairly typical lawyer-lobbyist.

  17. Lars Johansson

    Touchy about sovereignty

    "newly minted political entities tend to be that way [touchy about their sovereignty] until they mature"

    For some nations, that maturing process can last some 230+ years or more...

  18. b shubin

    Mature nation

    @ Lars

    actually, the US experienced maturity, responsibility, and a social conscience briefly, around the time of WWII, and has since lapsed into decadence, characterized by long periods of narcissistic oblivion, punctuated by brief moments of horrified self-awareness and occasional diversions into fear-driven aggression.

    this is best exemplified by the Baby Boom generation, most of whom refused to reach psychological adulthood, and basically have remained at the maturity level of a 17-year-old boy well into their 50s. of course, now, with their depleted savings and retirement funds, foreclosed houses, offshored jobs, failing Social Security, and privatized Medicare, they wonder how they managed to piss the country away on shopping, wars and tax cuts.

    behold the Roman Empire redux, in fast-forward, complete with a mad Emperor, a deadlocked legislature, and a corrupt judiciary. the Huns and Goths are due any minute.

  19. Chris Goodchild

    @ B Shubin

    You said it all in both your comments.Nice one er two

  20. Andy Goss

    New York Times a M$ sock puppet too?

    Surely not! But look:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/18/technology/18soft.html?th&emc=th

    Not so much a puppet as a parrot.

    Curiously, a blog, which I can no longer find, run by one of the writers of the article, takes a different view.

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