Bulgarian complaint against Microsoft

Bulgarian members of Parliament and Internet Society Bulgaria have filed a case with the Bulgarian Competition Protection Commission against both Microsoft Bulgaria and Microsoft USA.

The members of the Bulgarian Parliament Ivan Ivanov and Stoicho Katsarov and the Internet Society Bulgaria signed a letter to the Competition Protection Commission with four points questioning Microsoft practices and business behaviour.

The complaint concerns the development of the Bulgarian government e-gateway, which requires the users to have Windows and Internet Explorer if they want to use the electronic services, provided by the government. This is against rulings of art. 34 (2) of the Bulgarian law for protection of competition. Other articles concerned are art. 2 (1), points 2 and 3, and art. 18, point 2.

The complaint also points out that vulnerabilities in the Microsoft Windows OS are not known to the users, but only to the producers of the closed code software, which is against the provisions in art. 32 (1) of the law.

The Competition Protection Commission is asked to review the bundling of Internet Explorer and Windows Mediaplayer with Windows. This is in violation of art. 34 (5) of the Bulgarian law.

The two members of the Bulgarian Parliament from Democrats for Strong Bulgaria (DSB) are also co-authors of the draft law for using free and open source software in the administration, which is to be reviewed by the Parliamentary committee on Transport and Telecommunications on 17 June 2004.

ISOC Bulgaria http://www.isoc.bg/

Bulgarian e-government gateway http://egateway.government.bg/

(Thanks to Veni Markovski, ISOC Bulgaria)