Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
Nextcloud and almost 30 other European companies have filed a complaint about Microsoft's anti-competitive behavior with its OneDrive cloud storage offering.
[...] Now, with a coalition of other European Union (EU) software and cloud organizations and companies called the "Coalition for a Level Playing Field," Nextcloud has formally complained to the European Commission (EC) about Microsoft's anti-competitive behavior by aggressively bundling its OneDrive cloud, Teams, and other services with Windows 10 and 11.
Nextcloud claims that by pushing consumers to sign up and hand over their data to Microsoft, the Windows giant is limiting consumer choice and creating an unfair barrier for other companies offering competing services.
Specifically, Microsoft has grown its EU market share to 66%, while local providers' market share declined from 26% to 16%. Microsoft has done this not by any technical advantage or sales benefits, but by heavily favoring its own products and services, self-preferencing over other services. While self-preferencing is not illegal per se under EU competition laws, if a company abuses its dominant market position, it can break the law.
Nextcloud states that Microsoft has outright blocked other cloud service vendors by leveraging its position as gatekeeper to extend its reach in neighboring markets, pushing users deeper into its ecosystems. Thus, more specialized EU companies can't compete on merit, as the key to success is not a good product but the ability to distort competition and block market access.
Frank Karlitschek, Nextloud's CEO and founder, goes so far as to say:
This is quite similar to what Microsoft did when it killed the competition in the browser market, stopping nearly all browser innovations for over a decade. Copy an innovators' product, bundle it with your own dominant product, and kill their business, then stop innovating. This kind of behavior is bad for the consumer, for the market, and, of course, for local businesses in the EU. Together with the other members of the coalition, we are asking the antitrust authorities in Europe to enforce a level playing field, giving customers a free choice and giving the competition a fair chance.
[...] Will this effort come to anything? Stay tuned. The EC, has in the past, as Google can attest, rule that American companies have engaged in anti-competitive behavior in the EU.
(Score: 3, Informative) by PiMuNu on Monday November 29 2021, @01:23PM (3 children)
I note Windows last night fired an unsolicited pop-up at me to "Select Microsoft's preferred browser" as well as set up an online profile. One can guess that MS's preferred browser is not firefox or chrome...
I also note that Apple does similar things with iCloud.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 29 2021, @03:40PM
Apple will nag you to sign into iCloud after every security update, but still makes it fairly easy to just say "skip till next time" and it isn't buried in some other menu during the process or with obfuscated language.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 29 2021, @04:20PM (1 child)
Choose to use a shit OS, and you have to deal with shit. No one has sympathy for Windows users, because it is YOU who prop up Microsoft.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 30 2021, @03:02PM
Almost nobody buys a car to be a mechanic, almost nobody buys a heater to be a heating system technician, almost nobody buys a jacket because they want to learn how to sew.
99% of computer users just want their computer to work. Windows is shit. But for people who don't have the time or interest in learning all of the options and their trade offs, Windows is the default option. It's in the stores, it's on the websites, they probably used it in school, they probably used it at work. Even with all of the headaches and frustrations, it's less work than learning something else. Insulting someone for getting Windows is like insulting someone who bought a Toyota for not building their own car.
And no, I don't run Windows. But the tech industry circle jerk while we look down on Window$ lUsers doesn't do anyone any favors. Take all that energy you're spending on smug superiority and put it into making your favorite alternative to Windows more novice-friendly or even more technically superior to Windows.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by canopic jug on Monday November 29 2021, @01:44PM
There's no need to stoop to sending traffic to M$ ZDNet. It was great decades ago, but recent years show it to only be filled with puff pieces written by M$ shills which spin each and every topic in M$ favor and against its competitors (i.e. everything else). Even though there are only a tiny fraction of sites, and journalists, out there as compared to years past, there are many other less disreputable sources out there. One would be PCMag which has an article titled, Nextcloud Asks EU to Stop Microsoft From Bundling OneDrive With Windows [pcmag.com] and Politico covers it as, Microsoft targeted in antitrust complaint to EU over OneDrive [politico.eu].
Though, if ZDNet is really going to be quoted in the fine summary, at least balance it with a statement from NextCloud itself: EU tech sector fights for a Level Playing Field with Microsoft [nextcloud.com].
Not surprisingly the German language sites picked up the news long ago and provide a more neutral perspective than the English language ones which are fully beholden to M$ and its partners for advertising money.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 29 2021, @01:51PM
Msf't seems to be working hard to make it so that nobody would every buy their stuff unless they had to.
A far cry from just making happy customers when they started.
Ironic in that their original worry was to not become like IBM.
Thank goodness for alternatives so that fewer and fewer have to.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Monday November 29 2021, @02:19PM (5 children)
It isn't just Microsoft offering that kind of shite. Install Chrome, Firefox, or any variant, one of the first things the browser offers is to sync your browser across devices. I've never done that. If I really need to sync my browser across multiple devices, I can always do it myself.
Apple's iDrive may be a little less in-yer-face with sync, but it's most definitely there.
I'm sure that Chrome tablets are even more in-yer-face than Google's browser is.
Every time you sync anything, every time you use G-drive, OneDrive, or iDrive, you're feeding data to the data brokers. That needs to end. Beavis and Butthead probably sit around the server room at night, monitoring select nubile young women - or young boys for that matter. How 'bout all those chat programs? I don't use them, so I don't know what they collect, or how the data is used. Imagine being able to monitor the video conferences of business - world wide. Talk about insider trading!
(Score: 3, Informative) by hendrikboom on Monday November 29 2021, @08:05PM (1 child)
It wasn't clear to me, but I got the impression that Firefox, at least, let you use one of your own devices for the sync database.
I have found it convenient to make my own file of bookmarks and place it online [pooq.com], where I can reach it whatever browser I'm using. Of course, I end up maintaining it without any browser's help.
-- hendrik
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Tuesday November 30 2021, @03:14AM
You can look at my bookmarks too.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 29 2021, @09:23PM (2 children)
If Runaway is sure, that's good enough for me! He is sure of many things. The man is a veritable walking encyclopedia!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 29 2021, @09:44PM (1 child)
jelly, bro?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 30 2021, @12:09AM
nah, vaseline.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 29 2021, @03:05PM (2 children)
They'd be better off pursuing Microsoft making it more and more difficult to sign into a Windows desktop without having an online Microsoft account.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 29 2021, @03:16PM
yes, but ALSO they should (have to) allow to sign-in to your windows computer via a ALTERNATIVE cloud account *ducks*
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Gaaark on Monday November 29 2021, @11:05PM
They'd be better off forcing MS to have a forced install button for any competitive product but their own:
force an install of Libreoffice and Firefox, etc. and have them make NO references to MS Office or Edge, etc, whatsoever, EVER.
They want to cut out the competition, force them to install the competition and force them to never mention their own products. AND, force them to never have Windows pre-installed and always have Linux pre-installed, forcing the customer to go through the painful act of installing Windows themselves.
They don't want to be competitive? Force them to have to compete with their competition.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Subsentient on Monday November 29 2021, @03:45PM
They should have included a complaint against Windows 11's default browser bullshit, that's much more obviously an anti-competitive practice.
It's such a glaring failure that it's hard to imagine how they overlooked it, and frankly it's far worse than the OneDrive shit.
I guess I should just be glad regulators are interested in doing anything at all, given the near-total state of regulatory capture that large corporations now have over consumer protection organizations.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Quicksilver on Monday November 29 2021, @03:56PM (10 children)
I usually spend 3 to 4 hours removing all the Microsoft bloatware and getting the system to a point where it isn't continuously annoying. With every version of Windows it gets harder to "Wack-A-Mole" all the intrusive updates. One Drive usually requires that I uninstall it at least twice as it generally reappears in a day or two.
Their new found insistence on requiring a Microsoft account is the most annoying part of this. With Windows 10 it is just easier to set it up with no Internet access so you can do a profile with just a local account.
With Windows 11 my understanding is that it is impossible.
Making me connect a device generically to "the cloud" is a way to convince me I don't need it. Making sure that they have more 'surface area' for surveillance marketing is not something that I or the rest of the world needs.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 29 2021, @04:41PM
And like a battered wife you won't ever get rid of Windows and will let it keep abusing you.
(Score: 1) by pTamok on Monday November 29 2021, @08:17PM (4 children)
For me, the irritating thing is that Windows Pro doesn't require a Microsoft account, but the 'Home' version does. The Pro version is an existence proof that the account is not necessary.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday November 29 2021, @09:02PM (3 children)
Pro is for the shepards among us, home is for the sheep.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday November 29 2021, @11:07PM (2 children)
and both feed the wolf.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 30 2021, @04:32AM (1 child)
Lycanthrosoft? :-)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 30 2021, @01:47PM
Where wolf?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday November 29 2021, @09:01PM (3 children)
It shouldn't take that long. I've spent 3 or 4 hours learning how to get rid of the cruft, but subsequent installs go much faster. DISM is the fastest way to get rid for the worst of it, then get rid of telemetry with group policy editor. That takes 1/2 hr, tops, and you could probably live with what's left.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Gaaark on Monday November 29 2021, @11:20PM (2 children)
But why use an operating system that forces you to do that???
Would you take 3-4 hours of beatings just to eat supper? Have sex?..... whoa, sorry: just delved into the DANGER ZONE!
But seriously?? That just sounds idiotic when you read again what you and Quicksilver wrote. After all the crap you go through with MS shitting all over you, why bother cleaning yourself up afterwards?
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday November 30 2021, @03:05AM (1 child)
Why would I do it, personally? Mostly for fun. I don't need Microsoft, don't use it often, and mostly because *some things* don't work on Linux or Mac. Example? If you want to use a police scanner, there are several versions available on Android, iOS, and Windows. Not so much for Linux or MacOS. I was just poking around when I found that bit of trivia, but if you seriously wanted a police scanner, you would feel like you had to use one of those 3 OSs. (I did find one site on the internet that streams police radio from many different cities, but it's terribly patchy.)
After my recent fit of curiosity regarding Windows 11, I may not touch a Windows install for months. Or, I may fire up a Windows VM to do something crazy tomorrow. Ehhh, who knows?
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Wednesday December 01 2021, @12:40AM
If i NEEDED Windows, i wouldn't spend time 'getting it the way i want': I'd fire it up, do what i want to do, then get off. 'F' dat shit.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---