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March 11, 2010 7:58 AM PST

Browser ballot not on tap for Asia

by Liau Yun Qing

Opera Software, the chief complainant in the European Commission browser case against Microsoft, will not be pushing for a similar action in the Asia-Pacific region. The Mozilla Foundation's Open to Choice campaign will not be "explicitly promoted" in the region, either.

In an e-mail interview with ZDNet Asia, an Opera spokesperson said that though Opera is a member of the European Committee for Interoperable Systems (ECIS), it has "not taken a further decision" to lobby for browser choice in the Asia-Pacific region. The ECIS had last Tuesday released a statement (PDF) to urge antitrust agencies around the world to implement browser choice in their countries.

Firefox creator Mozilla is now running the Open to Choice campaign to increase awareness of browser choice among European users. Gen Kanai, director of Asia business development for Mozilla, told ZDNet Asia the campaign will be focused on the EU region, although it would not preclude future activities within Asia Pacific.

Read more of "Browser Choice not coming to Asia" at ZDNet Asia.

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by abrahmm March 11, 2010 8:30 AM PST
Good. The whole campaign was ridiculous to begin with, and even more ridiculous that the EU actually forced Microsoft to advertise competitor's products. I'm glad they won't be pushing this in Asia and I hope they don't try it in the States, or if they do I hope the justice system shoots them down for how stupid it truly is.

And this is coming from a Firefox user that has only used IE to download Firefox for the last 4 years.
Reply to this comment 3 people like this comment
by Lennron March 11, 2010 8:38 AM PST
Agreed. All the campaign did was make me want to use IE more. Let's force McDonalds to advertise the Whopper and Hardee's thick burgers while we're at it.
1 person likes this comment
by redmarine March 11, 2010 10:44 AM PST
@Lennron, but the difference is that the other browsers rule while McDonalds kills you slowly with their products.
2 people like this comment
by krosafcheg March 11, 2010 11:04 AM PST
@Lennron
> make me want to use IE more

why do you want to use the worst browser ?
2 people like this comment
by Lennron March 11, 2010 2:38 PM PST
@krosafcheg

I didn't intend on rating the browsers from best to worst. But since you mentioned it, IE works fine for me. I've never had any of the issues people complain about. And in regards to the browser speed, with broadband most pages load practically instantly no matter which browser I use, so browser speed is a moot point for me.
by gerrrg March 11, 2010 8:47 AM PST
Seriously, you have to go back a decade ago when the US tackled this with David Boies at the DOJ, at which point, IE's dominance was a pertinent and serious concern.

The EU's move seemed relatively moot, given the competitiveness of the browser market at this point in the short history of the free internet browser.

I think the only people who care about this, are those EU parliamentarians who think they're making a difference.
Reply to this comment
by exactlyy March 11, 2010 10:49 AM PST
a lot of people who get online know nothing about ,browsers/installing/formating...etc.
i even know alot of them who still dont know that IE7/8 got tabs..they just look for the blue "e" ..double click it and go to facebook..myspace...etc.
so what EU has done is actually nothing..cuz noone of them is going to install his copy of Win 7.. it'll be installed for them and IE w'll be there cuz the one installing it for such people wouldnt waste more time teaching them about the new browser and how to open it
Reply to this comment 1 person likes this comment
by Nataku4ca March 11, 2010 3:39 PM PST
lol couldn't agree more...

I'm one of those installers lol
by pjk0 March 11, 2010 10:38 PM PST
Lots of 20-20 hindsight here.

It's pretty trivial to poo-poo the actions of some organization after the fact. Reminds me of all the armchair experts who crowed about the Y2K issue (after the fact) as if it were some sort of a hoax, since they didn't notice anything failing in their little world when their clock ticked-over. But of course they weren't the ones who spent years in the trenches (and billions of dollars) fixing millions of things precisely so they WOULD NOT break.

If it weren't for the various enforcement actions that have been undertaken to keep a lid on Microsoft in recent years, the tech world would look very different today. It's easy for someone ignorant of the detailed history to wave their hands around and dismiss all these things as irrelevant in the "New World Order" of the Humble Microsoft, but things were not always this way.

Study the proceedings of the first US antitrust trial of MIcrosoft (which was ultimately eviscerated over a technicality and a very biased new US administration that came into play) and see for yourself.

Then there are all those legal challenges that will never see the light of day, like how Novell had prepared an extremely d*mning case against MS over a number of years (DRDOS issue and intentional disabling of competitors products), and was about to go to court over it, when Microsoft finally walked in and settled with them (Reputedly many of millions of $$ - money Novell sorely needed at the time), with the usual lousy stipulation that they had to seal all of the evidence and never publicly speak of the details of the case or settlement again.
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