[Anechoic]

Microsoft got in trouble for bundling IE. Why wouldn't Apple get in trouble for actively prohibiting competing browsers?

Microsoft got in trouble for using IE to strengthen their Windows monopoly - it wasn't too long ago that if you want to online banking, etc, you had to use IE and ActiveX which meant you had to use Windows.

Apple has no such monopoly, even in the smartphone space where Finland's Nokia has several times the marketshare of the iPhone.

[DrJokepu]

The EU policy doesn't even mention the term "monopoly". It is about "abusing a dominant position". From Article 102: (can be found at http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:... )

Any abuse by one or more undertakings of a dominant position within the internal market or in a substantial part of it shall be prohibited as incompatible with the internal market in so far as it may affect trade between Member States.

Such abuse may, in particular, consist in:

(a) directly or indirectly imposing unfair purchase or selling prices or other unfair trading conditions;

(b) limiting production, markets or technical development to the prejudice of consumers;

(c) applying dissimilar conditions to equivalent transactions with other trading parties, thereby placing them at a competitive disadvantage;

(d) making the conclusion of contracts subject to acceptance by the other parties of supplementary obligations which, by their nature or according to commercial usage, have no connection with the subject of such contracts.

[halo]

I'm not sure how you can be so confident that the regulators will conclude that Apple doesn't have a monopoly if investigated by regulators.

This can be far from obvious. In the Microsoft case, it was decided that the operating system market is distinct from the web browser market. This conclusion is decidedly non-intuitive, since what does and does not make up a modern operating system is largely arbitrary, as anyone who has used a modular system knows.

What's to stop the EC deciding that the iTunes Store is distinct from the phone and MP3 player market? To me, it seems that the distinction between hardware and retail being different markets is much more clear than the line between where an OS ends and where software starts.

[tptacek]

The terminal point of this logic suggests that the EU is also going to rule that we can develop arbitrary applications for our cable set-top boxes, for Cisco switches, and for automotive engine computers.

[MWinther]

Isn't it intuitive that browsers, which for the most part are available for several different operating systems, is a separate market from the operating system itself? Seem like two different markets to me. Of course, on the iPhone there is so far no browser market, but that would be the exception, no?

[halo]

X.Org is available on several different operating systems too, but I assume you don't think that Microsoft should have been prevented from shipping a GUI with their OS.

[fungi]

...XYZ has no such monopoly...

If i had a dollar for every time that had to be explained.

[ZeroGravitas]

I'll take a dollar for every time it has to be explained that government action on "monopoly" doesn't require 100% of a market (and that "market" is a vague concept). I think I'd come out ahead.

[tptacek]

It sure as heck takes more than 25%.