We now have confirmation from Jan Philipp Albrecht (Greens) jan.albrecht@europarl.europa.eu that he will ask the following questions in the European Parliament.

*Get Active* If you have contacts with the Green party in your country it might make sense to get them to ask a similar questions in local parliament now. Eszter will send the questions to translators@, because than Jan Philipp Albrecht can share it with other Greens as well. (The German team will take care of Germany.)

Here the question:

Subject: Software advertising on public websites

Numerous EU public websites refer to proprietary software, like Acrobat Reader, as the only possibility to read PDF files and provide a download link. This is a case of direct advertising by public institutions, which creates a competitive advantage for one company to sell its products.

1. Currently, on how many of the Commission's own web pages do such advertisements appear?

2. Could the Commission provide links to these pages, as well as names of EU institutions that have such advertising on their websites?

3. What are the Commission's reasons (e.g. financial gain, lack of other functional software, etc) for advertising this particular software as the only possibility to read PDF files?

4. Have the institutions, that have such advertising on their website, explained whether they tried other PDF readers before? Which software did they mention?

5. What steps is the Commission taking to resolve this problem regarding a) the Commission's own website, and b) the websites of public institutions in Member States?