Some 25 organisations (the vast majority of respondents), including the BCA, support the CMA’s eventual Strategic Market Status (“SMS”) designation of Microsoft’s business software ecosystem, and various respondents raise issues concerning Microsoft’s conduct designed to favour its browser, Edge, at the expense of free user choice.
In its response to the CMA’s Invitation to Comment the BCA emphasises that Microsoft’s tactics leverage its dominant Windows OS and M365 productivity software suite to frustrate users’ choice of browsers, thereby damaging the user experience and lowering productivity for millions of businesse+s in the UK. This undermines the efforts of many differentiated, innovative browser developers to compete and reach new audiences, many of them being smaller developers who are especially vulnerable to Microsoft’s tactics.
And the BCA is far from alone in its concerns. In fact, almost a quarter of respondents to the ITC raised concerns with Microsoft’s anti-choice practices in respect of browsers, including the global portfolio rebates that secure blanket exclusive preinstallation of Edge and Microsoft’s dark patterns that prevent users from downloading and effectively using rival browsers. These respondents ranged from independent browsers (like Browserworks, Mozilla, Vivaldi,and Wavebox) to non-governmental bodies like (Open Web Advocacy (“OWA”), and the Browser Choice Alliance (“BCA”), and consulting groups, i.e., Third Stage Consulting, highlighting the broad, cross-party support for intervention.
Los miembros de la BCA declararon:
“Microsoft’s strategy of resetting browser defaults to Edge and ignoring user choice in key apps in its must-have productivity suite restringe activamente la libertad de elección de las empresas y genera una pérdida de productividad para las PYMEs. When operating systems override the specialised tools, like Wavebox, that businesses deliberately choose and pay to use, they aren’t just pushing a browser, están imponiendo un coste operativo directo y una pérdida de tiempo a las pequeñas empresas que intentan trabajar de forma eficiente.” (Wavebox)
“[Nuestra] preocupación es sencilla: Microsoft aprovecha su posición dominante histórica en Windows y Microsoft 365 para favorecer su propio navegador, Edge, limiting free and effective user choice and undermining fair browser competition.” (BrowserWorks)
“Microsoft is clearly deliberately trying to force users back to Edge, quienes luego nos responsabilizan a nosotros y tienen menos probabilidades de seguir utilizando nuestro navegador for work and professional reasons. We are glad to see the CMA picking up on these issues, since we are not able to fight back against Microsoft’s massive market power in OS and productivity where Microsoft sets the rules of the game.” (Vivaldi)
Otros participantes del mercado han expresado preocupaciones similares en sus propias contribuciones junto con la BCA:
Mozilla aforma que
“…during the upgrade from Windows 10 to Windows 11, users who have selected alternative default browsers do not have that choice maintained and respected. Instead, they are reset to use Edge as the default, with significant negative impact on usage and retention rates of alternative browsers.”
Y añade además
“Microsoft has employed a number of coercive design practices in an attempt to orientar a los usuarios hacia sus propios productos y alejarlos de las alternativas. Estas prácticas violate Microsoft’s own design guidelines, strongly suggesting that Microsoft is aware that these choices are not made with the user’s best interests in mind. Further, the fact that many of these deceptive practices disappear when used on recent versions of Microsoft’s software set to the EEA region show that they are no son inherentes al diseño del software, sino que reflejan decisiones deliberadas de diseño.”
Asimismo, señala que
“Microsoft ya utiliza prácticas de diseño perjudiciales para obligar a los usuarios a utilizar su propio navegador Edge, incluso cuando estos han elegido deliberadamente un navegador alternativo.”
Por su parte, Open Web Advocacy sostiene que
“The evidence set out in this report demonstrates a consistent pattern of behavior by Microsoft that undermines effective browser competition on Windows. Estas prácticas no son decisiones de diseño aisladas, sino que forman un sistema interconectado de fricciones, incentivos y restricciones técnicas que orienta a los usuarios hacia Microsoft Edge al tiempo que dificulta el uso de navegadores competidores. Even where individual elements may appear minor in isolation, their cumulative effect is to raise switching costs, distort user choice, and expand Microsoft’s browser market share at the expense of rivals, consumers and businesses.”
Además, la Computer and Communications Industry Association observa que:
“El ámbito en el que la presentación de opciones y configuraciones predeterminadas ha suscitado mayor preocupación es la forma en que Microsoft presenta las opciones de navegador en Windows. A diferencia de los ecosistemas móviles, donde suelen mostrarse recordatorios sencillos y objetivos, estas opciones se presentan con frecuencia de manera similar a las actualizaciones de seguridad. Presentar una recomendación comercial como si fuera un mensaje de seguridad o del sistema constituye un diseño potencialmente engañoso where intervention might produce greater benefits.”
La BCA reitera su disposición a colaborar con la CMA en el marco de esta investigación.
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