Microsoft is to be allowed to purchase LinkedIn, announced the European Commission on Tuesday 6 December, but its go-ahead is conditional upon a series of commitments to maintain competition among professional social websites in Europe.
The two US web giants are active in complementary sectors with minor overlaps for online advertising.
The Commission examined three sectors in particular, namely professional social network services, software solutions for managing client relations and online advertising services. Its investigation confirmed a number of fears – LinkedIn being installed by default on all computers using Windows operating systems; - combining, as allowed by contracts and privacy legislation, of LinkedIn and Microsoft's own user databases.
The Commission says that these practices would have been able to considerably boosted LinkedIn’s visibility as competing professional social media would be refused access to these tools and data.
To respond to these concerns, Microsoft offered to ensure that computer manufacturers and distributors are free to not install LinkedIn on Windows by default; and to allow computer users to uninstall LinkedIn from Windows if manufacturers or distributors decide to install it by default. (Orignal version in French by Élodie Lamer)