Does Microsoft’s "Forgetting" the EU’s Browser Ballot Matter Anymore?

The world once debated whether Internet Explorer’s dominance in Web browsers was fair in the wake of Microsoft’s conduct against Netscape. As part of its 2009 settlement with the European Union, Microsoft offered to give new Windows users in Europe a choice of default browsers, rather than just leave them with Internet Explorer and make them manually install any alternatives. At the time, one objection to this plan came from one of the very organizations whose objections to Microsoft’s conduct led to the settlement in the first place. The European Committee for Interoperable Systems (ECIS) alleged that the choice itself would be perceived by users as an annoyance at best, and at worst, a threat.

The EC may have been right.

Tuesday’s revelation that Windows 7 Service Pack 1 in Europe omitted the browser ballot for 17 months – without anyone raising a fuss – suggests that users may have been better off without it anyway.