The European Union's executive body, the European Commission, announced Tuesday that it was opening an investigation into whether Microsoft has kept the antitrust commitments it made in 2009, and warned that penalties for non-compliance would be “severe.”
Microsoft conceded it had “fallen short” of its obligation to provide the “browser choice screen,” or BCS. The screen would allow users of Microsoft's Windows operating systems to select a browser other than Microsoft's Internet Explorer.
EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia told reporters it appeared that the choice screen, promised by Microsoft in 2009 following an antitrust case, has not been provided since February, 2011, meaning 28 million customers who should have seen it may have not.
Microsoft submitted a report to the Commission in December asserting that the browser choice screen was being provided as required. In its statement Tuesday, the company said it believed at the time that was the case.
Read more: EU antitrust regulators investigate Microsoft - The Globe and Mail
The European Commission has opened an antitrust probe of Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) for allegedly discriminating against competing search services by restricting its advertising partners from placing ads on their sites. It also is investigating whether Google has restricted advertisers from moving their data to competing ad services.