Friday, the European Commission informed that it had begun legal action against Microsoft Corporation because the company’s decision to link their Internet Explorer browser to their Windows operating system violated the European Union’s antitrust rules.

The EU executive released a statement saying that Microsoft’s bundling Internet Explorer into the Windows OS hindered competition between web browsers, undermined product innovation and also narrowed down consumers’ choices.

The Commission has given Microsoft eight weeks to issue a response to their findings and said that if the company believed they needed a hearing to defend their decision, such a meeting would be granted.

This is not the first time that Microsoft has gone head-to-head with the European Union, since back in 2004, the European Court of Justice ruled that the company had violated EU antitrust rules by attempting to damage competitors for server and media player software.

At that time, the tech giant was fined more than $600 million, ordered to develop a version of the Windows operating system for Europe that did not come fitted with the Media Player software and also to share communications code with the competition.

Microsoft appealed the European Court of Justice’s ruling, but the latter was upheld September 17, 2007.

In February last year, the EU fined the company $1.4 billion because it had failed to comply with the sanctions that had been imposed as a result of the 2004 case.