Opera Cure: Worse Than the Disease?

ScreenshotYou may have seen the news yesterday that browser maker Opera filed a complaint against Microsoft with the European Commission, opening up the legal browser wars yet again. Raising the banner of consumer choice, they’re requesting the Commission to implement two remedies. First, they want IE unbundled from Windows (haven’t we been down this road before?). Second, they want “the European Commission to require Microsoft to follow fundamental and open Web standards accepted by the Web-authoring communities.”

Given the history between Microsoft and the European Commission (which, you will recall, ended up forcing the shipment of a version of Windows without Windows Media Player included), Opera has clearly chosen a friendly court in which to press its claims. The likelihood of a sympathetic hearing on the notion of Microsoft abusing monopoly power in the browser market seems high. But simultaneously, Opera is also playing to the court of public opinion, publishing an Open Letter to the Web Standards Community that’s been picked up by groups such as the Web Standards Project.


Restraint of trade is traditionally an area for legal remedies, but asking the courts to get involved in the already-messy business of web standards is something new. As web workers, do we really want to have this precedent set? There are several reasons why even Opera may regret opening this particular can of worms:

  • It’s not at all clear just what are the “fundamental and open Web standards.” Some sites are already experimenting with HTML5 and CSS3, even though the standards are in flux and not thoroughly implemented. Are these fundamental yet? Are things like MathML fundamental? Who decides?
  • No browser is perfect. Depending on how closely your read the standards and interpret them, you can always find a test to break any given browser. Will some other vendor turn around and demand that Opera be pulled until it fixes its own rendering bugs? If the end result is that only perfect browsers can be shipped, we will have no browser at all.
  • Once they get involved, why would the courts stop at regulating browsers? Imagine a takedown order aimed at a site you just deployed because it won’t validate. There are people out there determined to make the Internet a better place by forcing us all to be less sloppy. I’m not sure I want them to end up in control.

If they truly have used monopolistic powers to crush competition in the browser market (a claim which the United States was ultimately unable to prevail on) I’d be happy to see Microsoft appropriately regulated. But, speaking as a web developer, I do not believe that I want the courts stepping in to determine what standards must be implemented in shipping products.

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