IN BRIEF (Page 17)

EU drops Microsoft charges

The European Union said yesterday it is dropping antitrust charges against Microsoft Corp after the company agreed to give Windows users a choice of up to 12 other Web browsers.

Under the terms of the deal with regulators, Microsoft will avoid further EU fines if it provides a pop-up screen that lets European users, from March, replace Microsoft's Internet Explorer or add another browser such as Mozilla's Firefox, or Google's Chrome.