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Microsoft and Other Proprietary Traps

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Microsoft

  • Microsoft moves to avert EU antitrust clash over cloud

    European cloud companies complained to the European commission, the EU's antitrust regulator, accusing Microsoft of limiting customer choice.

    They also said the user experience was made worse and that there are incompatibilities with certain other Microsoft products when not running on Azure, the company's own data operating system.

  • Microsoft cloud licensing changes in bid to head off EU anti-trust plaint

    Microsoft president Brad Smith's statement on Wednesday about the change came in the wake of a complaint filed by German software provider Next Cloud, France's OVHcloud, Italian cloud service provider Aruba and an association of cloud service providers from Denmark, Reuters reported.

    The anti-trust suit was filed in December last year against Microsoft for allegedly forcing companies to use its file-hosting service One Drive on Windows.

    A statement from NextCloud at the time said: "OneDrive is pushed wherever users deal with file storage and Teams is a default part of Windows 11," the statement said.

  • More proof that paying ransom might not save your data [iophk: Windows TCO]

    According to the report, 72% of surveyed organisations had partial or complete attacks on their backup repositories, restricting their ability to recover data without paying the ransom.

    Almost all (94%) of attackers tried to destroy backup repositories, showing their business acumen. Worryingly, though not surprisingly, 80% of successful attacks targeted known vulnerabilities.

    The majority (76%) of those attacked paid the ransom, but approximately one-third of those were unable to recover their data.

  • NATO cyber coordinators hold first-ever meeting amid Russia’s invasion [iophk: Windows TCO]

    Senior cyber coordinators from NATO held their first-ever meeting in Brussels on Wednesday to discuss the cyber threat landscape following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

    The coordinators also reviewed the progress they’ve made in cyber defense, including efforts to build resilience against cyber threats.

  • Costa Rican president says country is ‘at war’ with Conti ransomware group [iophk: Windows TCO]

    Ransomware — and particularly the Conti ransomware gang — has become a geopolitical force in Costa Rica. On Monday, the new Costa Rican president Rodrigo Chaves – who began his four-year term only ten days ago – declared that the country was ”at war” with the Conti cybercriminal gang, whose ransomware attack has disabled agencies across the government since April.

    In a forceful statement made to press on May 16th, President Chaves also said that Conti was receiving help from collaborators within the country, and called on international allies to help.

  • Australian CISOs feel ‘least prepared’, 'more at risk’ of cyber attacks compared to global counterparts: Proofpoint

    Proofpoint says that while CISOs around the world spent 2021 coming to terms with new ways of working, Australian CISOs fell behind global counterparts when it came to feeling in control of their environment, with 77% of Australian CISOs saying their organisation is unprepared to detect, deter and recover from a cyber attack – the highest in 14 countries surveyed and up 21% from 2021.

    Proofpoint’s comments come as it released its annual Voice of the CISO report, which explores key challenges facing chief information security officers (CISOs) in Australia and around the globe.

  • OAUTH2 support for GMail

    Regrettably, these kinds of fees are far beyond what I can afford, given that I rely on donations from my users to make ends meet: even the $4,500 fee is well beyond what I could find on an annual basis. Google do not mention these fees anywhere else I have seen during the development process - only when you move to the publication stage do they appear — they are a kind of "sting in the tail", as it were.

Microsoft still breaking the law

  • Microsoft seeks to dodge EU cloud computing probe with changes

    Microsoft will revise its licensing deals and make it easier for cloud service providers to compete, its president Brad Smith said on Wednesday, as the U.S. software giant sought to dodge a lengthy EU antitrust probe into its cloud computing business.

  • Independent, But Together: How Antitrust and Regulation Can Work Synergistically To Benefit Consumers [Ed: This leaves out Microsoft, but then against Public Knowledge's Board was infiltrated by a Microsoft employee]

    Today, Public Knowledge released my new paper, “A Lesson From the Landmark AT&T Breakup: Both a Sector-specific Regulator and Antitrust Enforcers Were Needed.” The paper traces how antitrust enforcers and a regulatory agency with jurisdiction over telecommunications, each working independently in pursuit of its own defined mission, produced a competitive telecommunications industry with the attendant benefits for competitors and consumers and society – lower priced and higher quality goods and services. A similar dual approach of a regulatory agency with jurisdiction over Big Tech and the vigorous application of existing and enhanced antitrust laws aimed at the industry can do the same for Big Tech.

    For the past several years, a number of macro-level public policy debates have been swirling around Big Tech. One debate has been about whether the antitrust laws, perhaps with some strengthening or new provisions specifically designed to reach Big Tech, are sufficient to address the dominance of companies such as Facebook (Meta), Google, Amazon, Apple, and some others. Indeed, whether Section 2 of the Sherman Act, antitrust’s main anti-monopolization law, can be effective for at least part of meeting this challenge is currently being tested in antitrust cases against Facebook (Meta) and Google.

Looks like entryism

  • New Public Knowledge Paper Outlines How Regulation and Antitrust Law Can Work Synergistically To Rein In Big Tech [Ed: With Microsoft employee inside Public Knowledge's Board it is now using Microsoft lobbyist talking points like "Big Tech"]

    Today, we’re happy to announce our newest white paper, “A Lesson From the Landmark AT&T Breakup: Both a Sector-specific Regulator and Antitrust Enforcers Were Needed,” by Public Knowledge Senior Fellow Al Kramer.

    The paper discusses how the work of regulators and antitrust enforcers, working independently and with separate mandates, nevertheless complemented each other, to lead to the breakup of the AT&T Bell phone monopoly in 1984—marking a win for consumers and telephone competitors alike. The paper offers a deeper understanding of the history of the breakup, providing a blueprint for how both regulation and antitrust enforcement will be necessary to develop key remedies for curbing the problems Big Tech creates for consumers and innovation today. The paper also demonstrates how antitrust and regulation in the technology sector complement each other and proposes that regulation can lay the groundwork for both more effective antitrust enforcement and the advancement of other public interest benefits.

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