Microsoft Pays $605 Million Fine

By Agence France-Presse U.S. software giant Microsoft has paid a fine of 497 million euros ($605 million) imposed on it by the European Commission in March for having abused its dominant market position, a commission spokeswoman said July 1. Microsoft paid the fine even though it has appealed to the European court of justice to cancel it and was seeking suspension of corrective measures imposed by the commission to re-establish competition on the European software market. The commission, in fining Microsoft, said that the company had to offer a version of its operating system Windows without its Media Player software offering access to audio and video content. The commission also required Microsoft to provide competitors with the information they needed to enable their products to communicate with Windows. Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2004