Competition, privacy, children, workplace and security records spanning Microsoft’s operating systems, cloud, productivity, gaming and professional-network services.
The Commission had concerns that tying Teams to Microsoft 365 and Office 365 gave Teams a distribution advantage and that limited interoperability made it harder for competing communication tools to compete. Microsoft offered suite versions without Teams, pricing differences, switching rights, interoperability and data-portability measures.
View caseReporting on a complaint involving a school account says the authority found that tracking cookies were placed without valid consent and that access rights were not handled correctly.
View caseThe regulator examined LinkedIn’s legal bases for processing members’ data for behavioural analysis and targeted advertising. It found failures involving lawfulness, fairness and transparency.
View caseCalifornia’s Civil Rights Department alleged that employees who used parental, disability, pregnancy, medical or family-care leave received lower bonuses and unfavourable reviews that could affect pay, stock awards and promotion. Microsoft denied the allegations and agreed to settle after a multi-year investigation.
View caseThe board reviewed the 2023 compromise of Microsoft Exchange Online and described operational and strategic security decisions that allowed the intrusion to succeed and remain undetected.
View caseThe FTC charged that Microsoft collected personal information from children under thirteen during Xbox account creation before notifying parents and obtaining verifiable consent. The complaint also addressed incomplete parental notices, disclosures to game publishers and retention of children’s data after an account-creation process was abandoned.
View caseCNIL found that Bing placed an advertising cookie on users’ devices without valid consent when they visited the search engine. It also found that the site offered a one-click route to accept cookies but no equally direct route to refuse them.
View caseConsumer Reports compared workplace communication policies and identified broad collection and use terms that employees may be unable to negotiate.
View caseOFCCP compliance reviews identified hiring-rate disparities affecting Asian applicants for engineering, specialist and developer roles and Black and Hispanic applicants for software-engineering roles at Microsoft facilities in four states. The agency alleged that the selection practices violated federal-contractor equal-opportunity requirements.
View caseA government-commissioned data protection impact assessment documented risks in diagnostic data sent by enterprise versions of Office and proposed measures for public-sector use.
View caseMicrosoft had committed to show Windows users in the EEA a screen offering a choice of web browsers. The Commission found that the screen was not displayed to approximately 15.3 million Windows 7 Service Pack 1 users between May 2011 and July 2012.
View caseThe European Commission imposed a periodic penalty after finding that Microsoft had not made interoperability information available to competitors on reasonable terms, as required by the 2004 antitrust decision. Microsoft challenged the amount before the General Court.
View caseThe Commission found that Microsoft abused its dominant position by refusing to supply and authorise the use of interoperability information needed by competing work-group server operating systems, and by tying Windows Media Player to Windows.
View caseThe FTC alleged that Microsoft made false or misleading statements about privacy and security in Passport, Passport Wallet and Kids Passport. The complaint addressed undisclosed collection, claims about purchase security and failures to implement reasonable procedures for preventing, detecting and auditing unauthorised access.
View caseAfter trial and appeal, liability remained for Microsoft’s unlawful maintenance of its operating-system monopoly through exclusionary conduct affecting middleware and browser competition. The 2002 final judgment resolved the federal and settling-state remedy proceedings.
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