Microsoft never had enough market share in search to warrant antitrust lawsuits[1].

[1]That doesn't mean the EU won't use totally unrelated market share stats from 5 years ago to continue treating Microsoft like a money pinata.

Obivously, and I'd argue rightfully. Microsoft HAS lost market share, especially if you include tablet/smartphone OSs in the mix. I cannot seem to find it now, but not too long ago I ran across a survey which included portable devices into their calculations of OS marketshare percentages, and determined that Microsoft now has a minority share of the global OS market when those numbers are included.

Microsoft still dominates on the desktop, but the desktop doesn't matter like it once did. I doubt that the government will express much interest here, and rightfully so.

I guess I'm a little shocked at how willingly everyone just thinks this is ok. Bundling like this is not in the best interest of the consumer. Why would interested in artificially inflating a company's market share in an unrelated space because you forget to disable it?

Are you going to be ok if Microsoft introduces ad tiles in Metro?

You can turn all of the integration off, if you choose. Europe may still go after them.

I doubt even the EU will act against the only meager competition to Google's absolute dominance. Not to mention that devices with Google as default are the majority these days because of iOS, Android on phones and tablets with declining PC sales. Bing is only default in IE which in nullified in EU because of the browser ballot, Google pays off Mozilla and some OEMs to have it as the default.

Bing controls less than 20% in US and probably less than 5% in EU.

What I'm surprised is why EU, at least, allowed Google to buy more market share by paying Firefox