US politicos tell European Union to get off Microsoft's back

TEN MEMBERS of the US House of Representatives wrote a letter to the European Union's antitrust commissar yesterday more or less telling him and the EU to lay off all-American company Microsoft.

The open letter from five Democrats and five Republicans said that the "potential of a regulatory impediment to the continued vibrancy of American and European industries is the utmost concern to us".

They claimed that the ruling yesterday by the EU to fine Microsoft nearly half a billion €uros violated an agreement the Community had with the US.

The US Department of Justice, they claimed, had investigated and resolved the same matters that the EU had investigated after a lengthy investigation.

They said that the EU should not have investigated the inclusion of audio and video functionality in the Windows operating system because "this exact issue was raised and resolved during the US settlement".

In effect, the open letter tells the EU to get off its turf. "This case involves a US company, the complaining parties in the EU were primarily US companies and... all of the relevant design decisions occurred in the United States". µ

* THE SIGNATORIES are Robert Wexler, Peter King, Dan Burton, Gregory Meeks, Steve Chabot, Joseph Crowley, Jo Ann Davis, Adam Schiff, Mark Green and Chris Bell.