Why’s the EU picking on tech giants? Search me
Claims that the EU is safeguarding competition by punishing big tech firms don’t stand up to scrutiny
Great journalists defend the defenceless. Then there are cheap hacks like me who defend the indefensible. So put the coffee pot on, fire up your indignation, and sit back in disbelief as I make the case that Microsoft and Google are being unfairly picked on by the EU.
The EU, as we know, has a massive problem with “bundling” – but only if you’re a monopoly. Apple can bundle what it likes with its operating systems – web browsers, media players, email clients – because its products are so expensive that it will never monopolise a market. The moment you cross the line into market dominance, however, the rules of the game change.
Microsoft has had multiple run-ins with the EU for behaving in exactly the same manner as Apple. In 2003, it was ordered to release an “N version” of Windows without Windows Media Player, the Commission deciding that this illegal tie was unfair on all the other media player makers in the market.
Then the browser makers got their pound of flesh in 2009, when the EU decided that bundling Internet Explorer with Windows was equally egregious, culminating in maybe the worst legal remedy since the OJ Simpson trial: the infamous browser ballot.
In both cases, Microsoft pleaded that bundling software with Windows didn’t impede competition. There were plenty of free media players available to download, there were plenty of alternative browsers. If people didn’t like Windows Media Player or Internet Explorer, there was nothing stopping them going elsewhere. A parking space in the Start Menu and an icon on the desktop was no guarantee of success.
History has vindicated Microsoft’s case. The bungled browser ballot didn’t topple Internet Explorer: competition did, in the form of Google Chrome, which is now the world’s most used desktop browser with a monopoly-ish market share just shy of 60%, according to NetMarketShare.
If more evidence were required, Microsoft might point somewhat embarrassedly at the “success” of Edge. Despite being its default, bundled browser since the launch of Windows 10, Edge has utterly failed to ignite. Windows 10 now has a desktop market share of 27%, yet Edge manages a meagre 5%. If, as the EU asserted, consumers simply shovelled down whatever was served up in front of them, why is Edge the browser equivalent of the Liberal Democrats?
The EU has long since given up on kicking lumps out of Microsoft. There’s a new, juicier target on the radar: Google. The EU helped itself to €2.4bn of Google’s savings last month, when it decided that promoting its own Shopping service above that of rivals was anti-competitive. Google bundled Shopping at the top of the search results, and allegedly demoted price comparison rivals. “It denied European consumers a genuine choice of services and the full benefits of innovation,” said Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, who led the charge.
Denied customers a genuine choice? Really? I don’t know about you, but 99% of the time I buy something online the first site I check is Amazon or eBay, not Google. I might punch the product name into the search engine to check if I can get it cheaper elsewhere, but there is choice, and plenty of it. Google isn’t the internet, despite what Vestager seems to believe.
Now consider how that same principle could be used to batter the rest of Google’s portfolio. If you pop a postcode into the search engine, for example, the first thing you see is a Google Map, in precisely the same way Bing Maps appear in Microsoft’s engine and Apple Maps are delivered from Safari. Will Google be charged with harming the mapping market? You can bet your bottom euro some mapping minnow is preparing just such a complaint.
Then there’s the ongoing EU investigation into Android, in which Google stands accused of shutting out rivals by making its own search engine the operating system’s default and forcing manufacturers to bundle the Chrome browser. Yet, as was the case with Windows, alternatives are merely a download away. It takes precisely 12 seconds to replace the Google search bar on the home screen of my Samsung Galaxy S7 with a Bing widget – I know because I’ve just done it. And now I’m changing it back, because I prefer Google to Bing. That’s choice – the thing that Vestager and the EU seem to think I’ve been robbed of.
The EU isn’t looking out for consumers. If anything, it’s making consumers’ lives more difficult with daft remedies such as N versions, browser ballots and stripping Google of valuable features. It’s also stripping these big companies of cash – billions of euros, all of which goes straight into the EU’s coffers.
If the EU were interested in promoting competition, wouldn’t it hand at least part of the fines to the companies it claims are being damaged, instead of pocketing the proceeds?
The EU has long since given up on kicking lumps out of Microsoft. There’s a new, juicier target on the radar: Google