The EU Competition Commission, which levied a fine on Microsoft, had indicated long before the announcement what was in store, so “EU fines Microsoft” was expected. What we did not know was how much the fine was going to be.
The fine was for failing to offer users of Microsoft operating system a choice of Web browsers, after agreeing to do just that. The EU competition commission had determined that Microsoft’s coupling of Internet Explorer with its operating system and failing to offer users an alternative or alternatives, was an anti-competitive behavior.