The Russian Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) is investigating whether Microsoft is abusing its market position with the release of the Windows 10 operating system, following a complaint by Russian security company Kaspersky to the local FAS and EU regulators.
In a lengthy blog post this week, Kaspersky founder Eugene Kaspersky claimed that Microsoft is deliberately using Windows 10 to thwart third-party app developers.
Specifically, he said that Redmond has reduced the time it takes to check compatibility with the new operating system from two months to six days.
As a result, Windows 10 users receive warnings from the operating system that require the use of only Microsoft applications, or applications available in Redmond's Windows Store, from where the company receives a percentage of each sale made.
Furthermore, when Microsoft users install Windows 10, the operating system stops security suites and runs its own anti-malware tool (Microsoft Defender), because it considers security suites incompatible.
Anatoly Golomolzin, deputy head of the FAS, said that the short time given to software manufacturers, as well as the fact that Microsoft has its own security suite, gives Redmond “unjustified advantages,” and therefore his service will thoroughly deal with the issue.
But Eugene Kaspersky also demanded more for Microsoft's Windows 10:
He pointed out that users of the operating system even use Defender and try to use another one at the same time, Windows occasionally displays notifications to the user encouraging them to change vendors.
“Despite Microsoft slowly killing the independent security industry, so far, we are the only ones who have decided to say something about it publicly,” Kaspersky said.
“There are dozens of other companies in the industry, but unfortunately they only express their discontent in informal groups, where many things have been said correctly, but they are not going to actually do anything significant.”
Microsoft has not said anything at this time.
