China Antitrust Regulator Targets Microsofts Web Browser Media Player
Microsoft Corps Windows web browser and media player are being targeted in a Chinese antitrust probe, raising the prospect of China revisiting the software bundling issue at the heart of past antitrust complaints against the firm in the West. The State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC) suspects Microsoft of not being fully transparent with information about its Windows and Office sales, but the company has expressed willingness to cooperate with ongoing investigations, Zhang Mao, the head of the antitrust regulator, told reporters at a briefing in Beijing on Tuesday. As Windows became the worlds dominant operating system in the 1990s and 2000s, the issue of how Microsoft bundled its web browser and media player became the focus of respective antitrust cases brought by U.S. and European authorities. Microsoft settled in 2001 with the U.S. Department of Justice a long-running case centring around whether it could bundle its flagship Internet Explorer brow...