Washington, D.C. - Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) and the TaxPayers’ Alliance (TPA) today criticized the submission of an antitrust complaint by a Norway-based web browser company against Microsoft.  The company, Opera Software, wants the European Commission (EC) to force Microsoft to unbundle Internet Explorer (IE) from its Windows operating system or have competitors’ browsers installed along with IE.

In a press release announcing the complaint, Opera CEO Jon von Tetzchner said, “We are filing this complaint on behalf of all consumers who are tired of having a monopolist make choices for them.”

“It seems like Opera is tired of having to compete in the open market and instead wants the government to make choices for consumers.  Consumers already can and do choose to surf the web using any browser they prefer; Microsoft does not prohibit the use of Opera or any other application on its operating systems.  Government intervention into how individuals browse the internet on their personal computers is not warranted,” said CAGW President Tom Schatz.

According to Net Applications.com, in 2007 Moxilla’s Firefox browser has a 15 percent world market share despite its 1.0 version being released in late 2004.  Both Safari and Netscape have larger market shares than fifth place Opera.

If the EC acted favorably on Opera’s complaint, the result would be similar to the EC’s decision to force Microsoft to provide an operating system without its media player.  That turned out to be a disaster as there was virtually no demand for the EC-designed operating system XP-N and it was rejected by consumers.  In September 2007, CAGW condemned the European Court of First Instance’s (CFI) ruling on the Microsoft antitrust case and predicted that the decision would open the floodgates for a tsunami of lawsuits and stultifying government micromanagement. 

“As TPA and CAGW predicted, the EC’s heavy-handedness has inspired Microsoft’s competitors to pile on and use the government to get a leg up when their products fail in the free market.  The EC’s decisions have harmed consumers by forcing them to accept products they do not want instead of allowing the marketplace to resolve these issues,” said Matthew Elliot, TPA Chief Executive.

“Regulation by litigation hurts taxpayers, stifles innovation, creates trade barriers, and harms intellectual property rights.  The EC should dismiss Opera’s frivolous complaint,” Schatz concluded.

Citizens Against Government Waste is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in governmen