The time they are definitely a changin’. The European Commission has announced that it will end the full-time monitoring of Microsoft and its activities that had been going on for several years.
The reasons given are the improvements in Microsoft’s behavior and legal changes that mean any continued market abuse can now be prosecuted at a national level.
Monitoring of the company was begun to ensure it was complying with an anti-trust ruling passed in 2004. Back then, Microsoft was hit with a huge fine for abusing its market position and forced to unbundle some of its products. It was also ordered to give information about its Windows OS to other companies, a move that would improve the way their products worked the Microsoft software.
