The EU commissioner for the digital agenda will launch the first EU-wide strategy on net neutrality this summer. As services like Netflix, Apple Inc.’s iTunes and Google’s YouTube create an explosion in online video, the Web’s infrastructure is stretched and some companies block certain data-intensive services, such as voice-over-Internet services on smartphones.

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“This market test should have been concluded yesterday, but at the request of some participants we have decided to prolong [by] one month the market test, so at the end of June we will receive the answers,” Mr. Almunia said in the European Parliament. “After we will analyze the responses … we will ask Google probably, I can’t anticipate this formally but almost 100%, we will ask Google to improve the proposals.”

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The European Commission has sent a questionnaire to a number of European Union wireless operators seeking details of Apple’s iPhone distribution deals — specifically, whether the company’s terms hamper competition in the smartphone market.

“The Commission has information indicating that Apple and Mobile Network Operators have concluded distribution agreements which may potentially lead to the foreclosure of other smartphone manufacturers from the markets,” reads the questionnaire, which was first obtained by the Financial Times. “If the existence of such behavior were to be confirmed, it might constitute an infringement of [antitrust law].”

Evidently, some carriers have complained privately that the unusually strict terms of Apple’s iPhone contracts and the sales quotas the company demands essentially require them to devote an overlarge portion of their marketing budgets to the device to ensure they aren’t left with any unsold inventory, which they are obligated to pay for. And because of that, these carriers may not be able to promote competing devices in a similar fashion.

That’s the argument, anyway. Of course, the iPhone is among the best-selling smartphones in the world, and carriers peddling it don’t often find themselves sitting on unsold inventory. Still, it’s a concern.

Add to that rumors of contractual language that might ensure that Apple receives the same or better terms and subsidies given to rivals, and the rationale for the EC’s interest becomes a bit more clear. And interest is all it is at this point. The EC has not yet opened a formal antitrust investigation, and it may not ever. Before it can do so, the agency must determine that Apple is the dominant smartphone vendor in the European market, and right now that title belongs to Samsung.

Apple did not respond to a request for comment.

The threat comes at a sensitive time for European telecommunications-equipment suppliers, which are looking to increase their business in China.

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The European Commission said Motorola’s actions ultimately harmed consumers, after the company sought court injunctions against Apple over the use of its patents, instead of properly licensing the technology to its rival. Motorola now has eight weeks to reply to the so-called statement of objections.

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In a proposal to the European Commission, Pearson, Penguin’s British media group parent, said it will terminate its “most-favored nation” contract with Apple, scrapping a policy that barred rival retailers from selling e-books at prices lower than those of the iPhone maker.

Penguin’s proposed agreement is essentially identical to the one proffered by Apple, HarperCollins, Hachette, Macmillan and Simon & Schuster last fall. If it’s accepted, it will effectively end the “agency” pricing model Apple used to launch iBooks, one that allowed the publisher, not the retailer, to set prices. It will also bring to an end the EU’s antitrust investigation into the matter. A similar investigation by the U.S. Justice Department continues, however, with Apple its sole remaining target. That case is expected to go to trial in June.

After months of conversations with the EU competition watchdog, Google last week submitted a final package of concessions that will later be tested in the market, giving Google’s rivals a chance to comment on whether the changes made an impact. Google didn’t make public any details about its proposal.

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The 17-member Fairsearch.org coalition, which includes Microsoft, Nokia, Oracle, TripAdvisor and Expedia, said that Google “uses deceptive conduct to lockout competition in mobile.”

The organization complains that Google gives away Android for free, but then forces those who want its maps or YouTube or the Google Play store to then preload other Google services.

“Google is using its Android mobile operating system as a ‘Trojan Horse’ to deceive partners, monopolize the mobile marketplace, and control consumer data,” coalition lawyer Thomas Vinje said in a statement. “We are asking the Commission to move quickly and decisively to protect competition and innovation in this critical market.”

Google representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Several European operators have submitted concerns about their contracts with Apple to the EU antitrust watchdog over the past months, two people familiar with the matter said Friday. French carriers led the charge, but companies from other EU countries were also involved, the people said.

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Apple, which in 2011 was fined $1.2 million for allegedly upselling its Italian customers into AppleCare extended warranties despite their overlap with the standard two-year product warranty required by European law, on Tuesday was singled out by EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding as evidence of the need for better cooperation on consumer protection issues across the EU. Last fall, Reding sent letters to the EU’s 27 member states asking them to review Apple’s warranty practices. She wasn’t at all pleased with the result.

“This case and the responses I received since I sent my letter have highlighted rather clearly just why the commission cannot sit on the side-lines on enforcement issues,” Reding said. “The approaches to enforcement in these types of cases turn out to be very diversified and inconsistent at a national level. In at least 21 EU member states Apple is not informing consumers correctly about the legal warranty rights they have. This is simply not good enough.”

In other words, there’s no coordinated enforcement of EU consumer rules. Different EU countries have different practices and sanctions for violations of consumer protection law. The problem here, of course, is that most consumer protection powers in the EU are held at the national level. The EC can’t come after Apple for its warranty practices. It can only take legal action against countries that fail to enforce EU rules.

Which of the following scenarios has regulators in Europe issuing hundreds of millions in new fines this week?

1) Google has released a laptop that consists of nothing more than its browser, thereby severely foreclosing opportunities for competition on any number of fronts.

2) Apple, which for years wouldn’t allow iOS apps to compete with its built-in programs, still won’t allow access to its fastest browsing engine, forcing rivals to use slower technology.

3) Microsoft, which used to have a dominant browser and operating system but has been losing share for years, has failed to live up to the terms of a deal over that fading monopoly.

If you guessed No. 3, you might have a job waiting for you at the European Commission.

While everyone else has turned their attention to mobile — an area where Microsoft trails badly — European regulators have remained doggedly focused on making sure consumers have plenty of choice of browsers when they bother to boot up their desktop.

The issue seemed passe when the EU revisited it back in 2009 and seems all the more so four years later.

Windows and Internet Explorer have continued to lose share over those four years on the desktop itself, and the real growth in the Internet is from billions of mobile devices.

To be fair, Microsoft did agree to offer European consumers the option of a ballot to choose which browser they wanted. Even Redmond admits it made a mistake.

“We take full responsibility for the technical error that caused this problem and have apologized for it,” Microsoft said in a statement. “We provided the (European) Commission with a complete and candid assessment of the situation, and we have taken steps to strengthen our software development and other processes to help avoid this mistake — or anything similar — in the future.”

But, at this point, might regulators want to turn their attention elsewhere?

Consumers certainly have. Even RealNetworks, Opera and the other outfits that initially complained about Windows have, too.

The European Commission said it was imposing the fine after the U.S. software giant became the first company to break a voluntary agreement with regulators, which would have allowed 15 million consumers to pick alternatives to its Internet Explorer browser.

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France’s privacy watchdog said Monday it and an unspecified number of other European regulators want to coordinate a “repressive action” against Google, after the company had failed to give “precise and effective” answers to a warning that all 27 EU national regulators issued in October. The full group of privacy regulators, known as the Article 29 group, is scheduled to vote on the proposal at the end of February.

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That the new policy is expected this week implies that President Obama may devote a few words to the subject in his State of the Union address on Tuesday night. Or he may not. But the fact of the matter is that the headlines have been rife of late with news of hacking attacks against American banks, media organizations and others that appear not be coming from pranksters in a basement, but from parties that appear to be operating barely at arm’s length from governments in countries like China and Iran.

One provision would order government agencies to share more information about the nature of computer threats with private companies and give relevant executives of those companies the option to get proper security clearances to get briefed on certain classified information about the nature of the threats, and perhaps lay the groundwork for improved responses.

Republicans and business groups have generally opposed this approach, arguing that voluntary government standards essentially amount to implied regulations that they have to follow whether they want to or not. Additionally they say — correctly — that any government-set standards would quickly be overtaken by the fluid nature of cyber security threats, which are changing daily.

Compare the approach, however, to the European Union, which has its own proposal for cyber security rules on the table, this one more onerous. It would require certain companies, including search engines, energy companies, banks, transit hubs, stock exchange and others to report disruptions to the operations of their computing systems and networks — including anything from human error to full-blown cyber attacks — to government authorities. The expectation is that the proposal will become law within the 27-nation EU within two years. Nothing voluntary about it.

Given the difference, here’s an interesting thought: So often the targets of attacks are entities so large as to have global operations and global networks. An attack on Google’s operations in Europe, for example, one that under the EU scheme would have to be reported to government authorities there, amounts to an attack on its operations in the States. The same is certainly true for many banks that operate on more than one continent.

Sharing of information about cyber security incidents has always been a tricky thing. Large companies don’t like to advertise that they’ve been attacked and their operations disrupted — and when they do disclose it publicly, they do so only sparingly — and the same is true for countries. One country doesn’t like sharing what it knows about a cyber attack because it doesn’t trust what its neighbor might do with the information.

But the difference in approaches makes me wonder why there isn’t more cooperation generally between countries, especially between the U.S. and Europe. National borders mean nothing in the digital realm, and attacks are very often launched from computers in one or more countries, operated remotely by people in one or more countries, against targets in one or more countries. Now everyone is a target and no one knows exactly who the attackers are.

This makes questions about cyber warfare and security infinitely more complex. Most attackers operate at a certain remove from any governments to which they may hold an allegiance, however strong or loose, allowing for what the diplomats like to call “plausible deniability.” Or they may be the equivalent of digital mercenaries fighting for whoever pays the most, or some combination of both. The multiple combinations of variables make the the old nation-to-nation, single attacker, single target paradigm seem outmoded.

That makes the sharing of information among authorities in the most target-rich nations — the U.S. and Europe generally — an important piece any response. If houses are being broken into by a burglar who happens to be good at prying open a certain kind of door or window that happens to be prevalent in your neighborhood, would you not want your neighbor to share that information with you so that you can prepare accordingly?

Perhaps the same kind of common sense approach should apply to the community of nations in the area of cyber security. Could it be done under the auspices of a multination treaty? Perhaps something similar to NATO, where an attack on interests in one country — whatever the entity doing the attacking, be it a nation-state, terrorists, or a gang of troublemakers — amounts to an attack on all? Just a thought.

Transit hubs, stock exchanges and a host of other entities would be covered by the proposal, which has been seen by The Wall Street Journal and which the European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm, drafted after a decade of failed voluntary measures.

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On March 1, an amendment to the EU’s Information Technology Equipment Safety Standard will go into effect, rendering the Mac Pro noncompliant. Evidently, the machine’s fan guards don’t meet the updated standard and, rather than redesign them, Apple has opted simply to stop shipping the Mac Pro to EU member states.

“Apple resellers can continue to sell any remaining inventory of Mac Pro after March 1,” the company said in a message to resellers first published by 9to5Mac. “Apple will take final orders for Mac Pro from resellers up until February 18th for shipment before March 1 2013. Countries outside of the EU are not impacted and Mac Pro will continue to be available in those areas.”

The Mac Pro has long been a niche product for Apple, so pulling it off the market in the EU will have minimal impact on the company’s bottom line. And the company has been working on its successor — “something really great,” in the words of CEO Tim Cook — with an eye toward launching it sometime this year. With that machine in the pipeline, it likely made far more sense to halt sales of the current Mac Pro than scramble to retrofit them into compliance.

The European Commission, which acts as the EU’s competition watchdog, is investigating whether Samsung’s past use of injunctions against Apple Inc. prevented competition.

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European officials are now debating whether to take the next step: an investigation that would risk igniting a trade war with Beijing.

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The European Commission today handed Microsoft a statement of objections, accusing it of failing to comply with its pledge to offer Windows users a choice of Web browsers.

Under the terms of a 2009 antitrust settlement with the EC, Microsoft was to present Windows users with a ballot screen offering them the chance to replace Internet Explorer with an alternative browser. And it did do that, initially. But, with an update to Windows 7 issued in early 2011, Microsoft unwittingly killed the ballot screen, and didn’t realize it had done so until it was alerted by the EC on July 2. And while the company corrected the error and apologized profusely for it, that hasn’t done much to ease the EC’s ire.

“If companies enter into commitments, they must do what they have committed to do or face the consequences,” European competition commissioner Joaquín Almunia said today in remarks to the press. “Therefore, companies should be deterred from any temptation to renege on their promises or even to neglect their duties.”

Hence, the EC’s statement of objections, which is another step toward a possible fine — one that could be as high as 10 percent of Microsoft’s global annual revenue.

Little wonder, then, that Microsoft is doubling down today on its apology.

Someecards

“We take this matter very seriously and moved quickly to address this problem as soon as we became aware of it,” the company said in a statement. “Although this was the result of a technical error, we take responsibility for what happened, and we are strengthening our internal procedures to help ensure something like this cannot happen again.”

In a letter to European Union member states, first obtained by Bloomberg, EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding asked if Apple has been properly notifying customers of the minimum two-year warranty they are entitled to under European law. “Apple prominently advertised that its products come with a one-year manufacturer warranty but failed to clearly indicate the consumers’ automatic and free-of-cost entitlement to a minimum two-year guarantee under EU law,” Reding wrote. “These are unacceptable marketing practices.”

Like Italy’s antitrust authority, Reding is concerned that Apple has been upselling EU customers into AppleCare extended warranties without properly explaining the two years of free assistance they are already entitled to under the EU Statutory Warranty.

Now, as I’ve noted here before, Apple disagrees with this characterization. It maintains that AppleCare is a different beast entirely from the mandatory EU warranty. AppleCare covers product defects that occur after a product is purchased. The EU warranty covers only pre-existing defects present at the time of sale and doesn’t guarantee consumers access to Apple telephone technical support and, for some products, express replacement service. And, importantly, Apple does describe the differences between the two on its Web site. The question the EU seems to be asking, though, is does Apple proactively explain consumer warranty options at the time of sale.

Apple has not yet responded to a request for comment.

“Microsoft has not kept its promises,” Almunia told reporters at an event in Warsaw. “We will have to consider taking the next step in this case. The next step is to open a procedure to determine a breach to our settlement. Since Microsoft has admitted it, I hope it will not take long.”

Bad news for Microsoft, which has already been fined about $1.28 billion by the EU. If things really go south for it here, this misstep could see it slapped with fines equivalent to 10 percent of its fiscal 2012 revenue. That’s about $7.4 billion.

According to EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia, the software giant is scrambling to reimplement in Windows the Browser Choice Screen that it accidentally removed with a February 2011 update to Windows 7. That screen was a requirement under Microsoft’s 2009 antitrust settlement with the European Commission, and it was intended to present Windows users with a ballot screen offering them an opportunity to swap out Internet Explorer for one of 11 other browsers from rivals like Mozilla, Apple, Opera and Google.

In the face of Almunia’s public threat of severe penalties for the misstep, Microsoft has reportedly claimed it is working hard to address the EU’s antitrust concerns. Said Almunia, “In my personal talks with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, he has given me assurances that they will comply immediately regardless of the conclusion of the antitrust probe.”

“We take compliance with our decisions very seriously,” EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said Tuesday. “And I trusted the company’s reports were accurate. But it seems that was not the case. If following our investigation, the infringement is confirmed, Microsoft should expect sanctions.”

Under the terms of a 2009 antitrust settlement with the European Commission, Microsoft was to present Windows users with a ballot screen offering them an opportunity to swap out Internet Explorer for one of 11 other browsers from rivals like Mozilla, Apple, Opera and Google. And it did do that, initially. But with an update to Windows 7 rolled out in February of 2011, Microsoft eliminated the ballot screen, and didn’t realize it had done so until it was alerted by the EC on July 2.

“Due to a technical error, we missed delivering the Browser Choice Screen (BCS) software to PCs that came with the service pack 1 update to Windows 7,” Microsoft said in a statement. “… While we believed when we filed our most recent compliance report in December 2011 that we were distributing the BCS software to all relevant PCs as required, we learned recently that we’ve missed serving the BCS software to the roughly 28 million PCs running Windows 7 SP1.”

Microsoft says it is scrambling to address the error, and has offered to extend its BCS compliance period by another 15 months to make good on it. But it remains to be seen whether that gesture will fly with the EC. After all, this is not the first time the group has taken Microsoft to task for noncompliance, and Almunia said today that if the EC investigation confirms the company’s failure to comply, there will be “severe consequences.” The EC can impose fines of up to 10 percent of annual revenue.

“This is in my view a very important case to ensure all the citizens and all the companies operating in the market that competition law requires a real serious enforcement,” Almunia said. “[We will] use all legal instruments with all the capacity to deter and to punish.”

In a ruling, judges reduced the fine to €860 million ($1.07 billion) from €899 million, but said they rejected all the arguments proposed by Microsoft. The software giant had argued that the Commission wasn’t justified in imposing the penalty for failing to meet orders four year earlier to open up the software market to rivals.

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