Microsoft even removed the default web browser setting from Windows 11. Instead of a single setting for the default web browser, customers must set individual “link associations” for the http:// and https:// protocols; as well as file associations for the .html file type.
This is just horrible. They are so desperate to get back market share that they resort to "purposely bad ux in new versions" tactics. What is their goal? Get more users on Bing? Get more tracking data via Edge?
> Beat their record fine from the EU? None of the others seems like a plausible result.
The reason they dare to try is because they know they might even get away with it.
I'm definitly not condoning it but the situation is very different from when they got fined. At the time Microsoft was fined smartphones weren't a thing. One might argue that this competes with Microsoft desktops marketshare. Also in notebook sales Chromebooks have on average (roughly) about a 20% market share [1]. On top of that Microsofts browser market share was 90+ % at the time of the fine, now it's almost non existant.
If it were up to me they would be fined into oblivion for this anti-competitive behavior but I think they might actually get away with it.
I don't know, Apple are being investigated for anticompetitive behaviour in the App Store[1], while iOS market share is below 30% across Europe ( I can't find the numbers for the EU only), and no in no EU country is iOS at more than 35% [2]. (In both cases, market share in smartphones, not general computing devices). You don't need to be a (quasi) monopolist to be anticompetitive, and I'm glad regulators know this.
You know the problem. Some VP somewhere has his bonus and review structured around the growth of Edge. Like a dark pattern, but for employees, not customers.
This is just horrible. They are so desperate to get back market share that they resort to "purposely bad ux in new versions" tactics. What is their goal? Get more users on Bing? Get more tracking data via Edge?