MS drives Lindows from Benelux

Legal assault effective pending appeal

By Lucy Sherriff • Get more from this author

Posted in Software, 15th March 2004 13:10 GMT

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Lindows has pulled out of the Benelux region following robust legal action from Microsoft.

MS asked local courts to fine Lindows €100,000 per day for failing to prevent visitors from the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg from reaching its site.

Lindows says it has done everything it can to comply with the earlier injunction to make its site "inaccessible to visitors from Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg". It has now suspended trading in the region, pending an appeal.

Michael Robertson, Lindows chief executive officer, said that it was impossible to comply with such a broad injunction because visitors to the US website come from international ISPs, proxy servers, anonymizers and other systems, "and Microsoft knows this".

"We have completely withdrawn our products from these markets and put notices on every page of our website, yet Microsoft is still asking that the Judge fine us €100,000 per day because non-US visitors can view our US-based website," he said.

Robertson argues that this latest legal attack shows that Microsoft is not just protecting a trademark, but is trying to put Lindows out of business. ®