# Microsoft agrees a browser-choice screen with the European Commission Date: 2009 ## The fact On 16 December 2009 the Commission made legally binding Microsoft’s commitment to offer a browser-choice screen in the EEA, a completed tying remedy after Internet Explorer’s Windows default. [Gates](/people/bill-gates) was chairman. ## Context Neighbouring 2004 decision is the parent abuse file. Neighbouring 2014 chairman exit is later. He did not write the TFEU. 2004 Commission decision is neighbouring. 2001 US settlement is the softer US analogue. Bill Gates was Microsoft CEO until January 2000, chairman until February 2014, then a technical adviser until 2020, and a Gates Foundation co-chair. That is not authorship of every Windows copy, every GAVI dose, or every IRS schedule. Melinda French Gates is a different person. Bill Clinton is PER-000772, a different person. A pledge is not a coverage rate. A docket is not a personality. ## Evidence and sources European Commission carries the official instrument or communique. Reuters records the same dated act independently. ## Significance The path is antitrust-pressure and digital-platform power: a completed choice-screen remedy is a tying-accountability instrument. ## What is established and what is not Established: 16 December 2009 browser-choice commitments, independently reported. Not established: that IE share collapsed that week, or a unique later consumer-surplus coefficient. What would change the picture: a contradictory original with a different date or name, a later repeal, a court that vacated the instrument, or a measured series that can be argued, with lag and alternatives, as a consequence of this instrument rather than of later institutions. The date is the date of this instrument, not a licence to back-date every later harm or benefit. The Commission made it binding. Users clicked. Rivals shipped browsers.. A later repeal, court stay, or successor order would be a different Fact with a different date. That pair identifies Microsoft agrees a browser-choice screen with the European Commission, not a later speech about Microsoft agrees a browser-choice screen with the European Commission. Co-authors and later implementers named in Context remain on the file. Microsoft agrees a browser-choice screen with the European Commission on 2009-12-16 is not a licence to treat every later European Commission communique as this same act. If a later repeal, stay, or successor instrument exists, it needs its own date and its own row. This dossier refuses to average Microsoft agrees a browser-choice screen with the European Commission into a personality. The contribution described on this Person row is limited to He was chairman of the committing firm. The Commission made it binding. Users clicked. Rivals shipped browsers. That limit is the alternative to treating office-holding as authorship of every later series. ## People - Bill Gates: https://factrail.ai/people/bill-gates ## Drivers - Antitrust Pressure in Digital Markets: https://factrail.ai/drivers/antitrust-pressure-in-digital-markets - Digital-Platform Power Concentration: https://factrail.ai/drivers/digital-platform-power-concentration ## Sources - https://www.reuters.com/article/us-microsoft-eu-browser-idUSTRE5BF2K420091216 - https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_09_1941 ## Methodology https://factrail.ai/methodology Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/eu-browser-choice-2009