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I don't know of any felonies they've committed.

United States v. Microsoft

The most they've done to my PC is inconvinience me. I haven't read about Microsoft remotely disabling apps,

Ever heard of Windows Product Activation or Windows Genuine Advantage [sic]? And before you counter it--- yes, they have disabled legitimate users before (slashdot had a whole hoopla about it).

Why is it that the people spouting the most ridiculous "facts" are always the ones that demand proof their fantasies aren't true? Especially given the obvious fact that you have in no way researched your own claims... Seriously, 5 seconds on Google - http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/press/rsorp94pr.htm The relevant bit, an estimated 3.3% of child molesters did so again within a 3 year period of being released from jail. A very very long way from your "basically 100% recidivism rate".

If you want to argue the merits of chemical castration compared to other forms of punishment, or even the semantics of referring to it as maiming, fine. But you didn't start with that; you started with a completely bullshit statistic made-up to support your argument. It severely weakens your position and makes your ranting against the ACLU and liberals sound like paranoid delusions on par with your delusional statistics.

The "crime", if you want to call it that, is that after years of scuzzball tactics, FUD, lawsuits, smears, and namecalling ("linux is a cancer" ... remember that?), a true blue, died-in-the-wool authoritarian software vendor is posing as a "look-at-me-I'm-hip-now" open source software vendor, likely while trying to find yet another way to screw the real open source community. Judging by the way they structured their "open source" (to use the term veeeerrryy loosely) initiative, they seem to think that open source means "will do what we tell them for free", proving that they still don't get it.

RICO should cover most of M$ business models, past and present.

While you're at it, add up the total damage from the Windows malware per quarter. It's got the late Osama Bin Laden beat, hands down. There may well be a business case for air strikes against Redmond. Obviously that would be preceded by naval bombardment and followed by after-action mop up by ground units.

http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/1999/July/316enr.htm

You can't sell porn to minors under obscenity laws.

You're analogy compared them to making drugs illegal wherein all users of drugs are criminals; hence by comparison in your analogy, all users of computers are criminals. As I said, bad analogy. Use your brain.

No, drug users are not necessarily all criminals. Take for instance Cocaine. Coca (the plant used to make Cocaine) used to be found in "Coca Cola" in minute quantities. Its use was then fully legal. It's only in 1970 that people had to be licensed to administer it and that it became illegal for most of the population. Still now, Cocaine is still legal in the United States "for legitimate medical uses, such as local anesthesia for some eye, ear, and throat surgeries." [citation]

Saying that "drugs are illegal because all drug users are criminals" is circular reasoning.

The only reason anyone carries a gun around in public is because they intend to kill someone.

Wrong. Law abiding citizens carry guns in public to stop people from robbing or murdering them. We don't want to murder anyone and would only fire as a last resort. In many self defense situations no shots are fired, merely producing the weapon stops most attacks. You have nothing to fear from law abiding concealed carry holders unless you are a criminal. If people want to carry guns to murder as you claim, then why are crime rates down while the number of guns only increases? http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/glance.htm

In the USA the entire building could be seized and the owner would have to reclaim it.

http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/pubs/csa/853.htm#n

Until recently he would also have to prove in court that he knew nothing about what it was being used for. It's kinda hard to prove a negative so there were plenty of cases of (eg.) people renting out big boats only to have the government seize them because the renter used them to transport drugs.

http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-632700_ITM

War on drugs, yay!

Exactly there is nothing novel about this. Companies have been setting up deals to get their software installed by OEMs for decades. The only reason this was posted was to try to push an anti-Microsoft spin and nothing else.

Not really. While it's true that companies have payed OEMs to add their software to computers, Internet Explorer stands in a category of its own. For as long as Windows had absolute dominance in the OEM market, for more than a decade, no OEM dared to question IE as the default browser on the machines they were selling.

Is it so easy to forget that Microsoft actively engaged in anti-competitive deals with the OEMs? That there was a time not so long ago when the only stuff you could add to a laptop was stuff that didn't compete with Microsoft's stuff?

We are seeing the end of an era here, and I consider that newsworthy. OEM bundling is one of the last, and strongest, Microsoft holdouts against the competition. The network effect is another and it's also breaking apart. Patent and copyright lawsuits will soon be all they have left.

One is "why are sex offenders treated worse than murderers". The answer is because *some* types of sex offenders have an extremely high recidivism rate. They're very likely to commit repeat offenses, while *most* murderers are not.

Citation needed. Every statistic on the matter I've seen has shown that sex offenders have a relatively low recidivism rate. For example:

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/crimoff.htm#recidivism

People like yourself continually repeat that there is high recidivism for sex offenders, without ever backing it up.

The re-offense rate for sex offenders is unfortunately high.

[citation needed]

I would like to point out that someone has posted recidivism rate for sex offenders is 5%, whereas the recidivism rate for *all* violent offence is 62%.

Please either cite your source, or admit that you are wrong.

Our Government already has! In the some odd 30+ years of my life, I've never experienced just how bad it has gotten. The unemployment, crime, corruption, incompetence, hubris: It's just nuts!

It has been much worse in my life tyme than it is now. In the 1970s we had staqflation, high inflation and unemployment. We had lines blocks long just to get gas, the lines in the southeast after Hurricane Katrina offered a taste of it. Crime was higher then too, crime rates have been falling since the 1990s.

Good thing our politicians have premo health care. I suspect they're going to need it after the angry mobs get done with them.

Especially if politicians try to socialize medicine.

Falcon

For those curious about judge Jackson decision you can read his findings of facts here.

If guns are more prevalent, then chances are that you're more likely to have one yourself, so if you fly off the handle, you can use your own in the committing of the crime.

This is such a tired old argument that I'm growing weary of dispelling it. Repeat after me: Normal human beings do not "fly off the handle" and murder other human beings. If they did then we'd also have to outlaw cars (hint: it's much easier to kill someone by running them over than by shooting them), kitchen knives, etc.

Patently bullshit. I can walk up to you with a concealed gun and shoot you in the head much more easily than with a concealed car.

In fact, the entire rest of your post is so idiotic that it's not worth dissecting. The self-evident facts are:
- Guns are specifically desinged to kill things. All except some rifles are specifically designed to kill people.
- Guns _are_ the most efficient and easiest way to kill someone. Or do you think the army should use hit-and-runs or throw knives at the Taliban in Afghanistan?

It's amazing the cognitive dissonance that otherwise rational people in the US are willing to put up with to defend their "right" to carry guns. The plain facts are that while the US has a similar crime rate to other industrialised countries in most respects, it's homicide rate is astronomical. Doesn't it tell you anything that your country has a worse homicide rate than Albania, Ethiopia, the Ivory Coast and Palestine?

Also, please have a look at these two links. They describe homicide rates in the US and in Australia (which has strong anti-gun laws) respectively. In 2003, 16% of homicides in Australia involved firearms. In the US, the figure is about 50%.

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/weapons.htm http://www.aic.gov.au/statistics/homicide.aspx
Please take some time to read these links and (hopefully) re-evaluate your position.

If people would look at the fucking statistics, they might understand. Guns account for less than 10% of non-fatal violent crimes. Even in fatal crimes, the majority of deaths that are gun related are from suicide (57%). http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/glance/tables/frmdth.htm

From http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/crimoff.htm#recidivism
"Recidivism

        * Of the 272,111 persons released from prisons in 15 States in 1994, an estimated 67.5% were rearrested for a felony or serious misdemeanor within 3 years, 46.9% were reconvicted, and 25.4% resentenced to prison for a new crime.
        * The 272,111 offenders discharged in 1994 accounted for nearly 4,877,000 arrest charges over their recorded careers.
        * Within 3 years of release, 2.5% of released rapists were rearrested for another rape, and 1.2% of those who had served time for homicide were arrested for a new homicide.
        * Sex offenders were less likely than non-sex offenders to be rearrested for any offense â"â" 43 percent of sex offenders versus 68 percent of non-sex offenders.
        * Sex offenders were about four times more likely than non-sex offenders to be arrested for another sex crime after their discharge from prison â"â" 5.3 percent of sex offenders versus 1.3 percent of non-sex offenders. "

One thing I want to know is why there aren't home invasion, murder, robbery and assault registries. Apparently sex offenders are less likely to get rearrested. So if we register them, why not other felony criminals?

I'm just sayin'...

And lets not forget about THC being schedule 3.

THC is in the Schedule 1 category.

It never struck them that the reason there are so many black inmates is BECAUSE they are racially profiled?

Well, here are the recent stats:

At midyear 2008, there were 4,777 black male inmates per 100,000 black males held in state and federal prisons and local jails, compared to 1,760 Hispanic male inmates per 100,000 Hispanic males and 727 white male inmates per 100,000 white males.

If, as you suggest, the Whites are lagging merely because they are less often stopped, there ought to be about 6.5 times more whites in prison, than there are now. There are over 200 million Whites in the US, so, that "6.5 times more" would translate into 8.1 million new prisoners. Do you honestly believe, there are so many more criminals in the US — all of them White?

It diverts attention of competition authorities from a self-proclaimed "do no evil" search giant earning its money through rather unobtrusive advertising (and which has now even been given a reinvigorated major competitor), to a company that is no stranger to antitrust crosshairs and with a body of Findings of Fact from earlier proceedings against it.

Copyright law is not defined in terms of "uploading" and "downloading". It does speak of "copying" as a right reserved for the author, however, and, quite obviously, copying takes place both when uploading and when downloading. So far as I can tell, the issue is who initiates the copying process here. If someone else uploaded a file into your publicly shared (for writing) folder, then it wasn't you, so you didn't infringe (mere possession isn't infringement). However, if you actually went elsewhere and clicked "Download", then you initiated the copy, and are infringing (as well as the other side, that willingly provided you with said copy). This applies to BitTorrent and other P2P networks just as well.

Specifically, from U.S. Copyright Office FAQ:

"Uploading or downloading works protected by copyright without the authority of the copyright owner is an infringement of the copyright owner's exclusive rights of reproduction and/or distribution. ... Since the files distributed over peer-to-peer networks are primarily copyrighted works, there is a risk of liability for downloading material from these networks."

It wouldn't be hard at all to prove downloading for many cases: RIAA would just subpoena rapidshare or megaupload or whoever; scan the download-log for infringing content; and then get financial information (which includes an identity as opposed to just an IP address) from the credit card/paypal used for the account.

It's not hard, but it's easier to go for uploaders, since all you need to prove they were distributing copyrighted material is to download it from them; for downloaders, you have to find some good evidence to get access to provider logs, or search their computers. Also, uploaders rake up more in liabilities: downloading is merely "copying", so it is known precisely how many copies are made, so damages would be limited to that; uploading, on the other hand, is "distribution", and this is where those insane $80,000 per "work" (i.e. file) fines enter into question.

That said, people have been sued for downloading. For example:

"Yamamoto, Mariano, and Martin allegedly downloaded large amounts of data from the warez server while they worked at Fox. This data included movies such as âoeWindtalkers,â âoeJimmy Neutron,â and âoeDivine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood.â"

Microsoft isn't forcing anyone to use Internet Explorer.

Har! That's a joke, right?

Nope. It's a troll, a distraction, from the old troll Bonch.

The illegal part in the EU and the US comes in by MS illegal bundling MSIE with its desktop OS monopoly. MS executives have been illegally leveraging the desktop monopoly to cause problems in the audio/video markets, then productivity software markets and the browser markets. Adding a second, third or fourth browser to the mix does nothing to address the bundling or illegal tying. Only removing MSIE from the OEM distributions of desktop systems will do that. And that's something Bill's astroturfers try to distract from.

M$ boosters and users are causing harm to your nation, your economy. Where is your national defense? How many have to lose their jobs first?

Microsoft "stole" nothing. Every thing they have was given to them voluntarily for something else in exchange. Not a shot was fired. If you have a complaint, take it up with the people who make it difficult to use an alternative... like your bank possibly, or the tax man. Microsoft has done nothing out of the ordinary in this market economy. Don't be playing the victim.

I am sorry, but I beg to disagree - Microsoft has done somethings out of the ordinary, otherwise the DOD and the European Comission would have not punished Microsoft

Plus, I really think that Windows ME was a crime against the whole humankind :P

Criminal behaviour shouldn't be encouraged. Plus I would love it if Microsoft management decided to withdraw from the second biggest market in the world and got sued to oblivion by their shareholders for such a stupid move.

What on earth are you talking about. MP3 is not an Apple thing, neither is AAC. My LG phone plays both without any problem at all and Apple has no influence on what music I can or can't play on it. Google may own search but so far they haven't done anything to illegally maintain that position. Microsoft have done several things. Here is the US anti-trust judgment if you care to look. There is an applications barrier to entry for any Microsoft competitor and they have done a great deal to prevent any middleware that could reduce that from ever taking off.

A vertical monopoly is still a monopoly.

It is not

Can you explain how KDE have (or even could) exploited this monopoly you claim they have to distort the market for web browsers?

MS are being treated in exactly the same way as other monopolists who bundle in both the US and the EU. For example, 3M with regard to both sticky tape and post-it notes for example. It is one of a range of ways if exploiting a monopoly, most of which MS has used, none of any of the others are in a position to use in the browser market.

If you do not want Microsoft products, do not buy them.

You don't have a choice, a us consent decree states that microsoft can not.

• (B) Microsoft shall not enter into any License Agreement that by its terms prohibits or restricts the OEM's licensing, sale or distribution of any non-Microsoft Operating System Software product.
• (C) Microsoft shall not enter into any Per Processor License.

Microsoft gets paid, even if you don't you use their operating system, due to the per processor licensing scheme.
To gauge the Governments effectiveness (above rulings were in 1994) read this FINDINGS OF FACT (1998) which

the Court finds the following facts to have been proved by a preponderance of the evidence

to save you the read not much has changed.

If you do not want Microsoft products, do not buy them.

You don't have a choice, a us consent decree states that microsoft can not.

• (B) Microsoft shall not enter into any License Agreement that by its terms prohibits or restricts the OEM's licensing, sale or distribution of any non-Microsoft Operating System Software product.
• (C) Microsoft shall not enter into any Per Processor License.

Microsoft gets paid, even if you don't you use their operating system, due to the per processor licensing scheme.
To gauge the Governments effectiveness (above rulings were in 1994) read this FINDINGS OF FACT (1998) which

the Court finds the following facts to have been proved by a preponderance of the evidence

to save you the read not much has changed.

what's Apple's motive here? Because if I made a hardware product and someone developed a new novel way to utilize it, my sales would increase. Sure people might not be using my software that goes with the hardware but who cares?

The motive is greed, the objective is monopoly control.

Apple makes money off more than just hardware, they make a killing off software and services as well. It is no secret that many businesses in the United States utilize ethically questionable and often times out right illegal business tactics to establish and maintain monopolies that provide an opportunity for the business to control the market prices of their products rather than the other way around.

None of this is new and Federal legislation was passed to provide the Justice Department with the means to stop this type of activity, note the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 and the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914. Unfortunately there seems to have been a shift in the thinking in the Executive branch and the Department of Justice as one of the most recent and significant cases, the DOJ case against Microsoft, resulted in a slap on the wrist and business as usual to this day.

I thought the same thing. Check out 1852 copyright law where it was not only fines but also jail time. We may have been smarter about enforcing it but the penalty was still life stunting. You violating copyright shouldn't be the end of your financial life or freedom. A fine, certainly but the magnitudes that have always been in place are ridiculous. It just speaks to me that with little if any methods for enforcing it, the US DoJ has settled for a penalty so harsh you are scared into observing the law. And as you look across the years, it seems to have been that way for quite sometime.

Let's face, the people holding the copyrights are the people with the money. The same now as it was then. They will push the government to extend extend extend that copyright term and to prosecute heavily offenders. That's reality because it's largely out of the public's mind what benefit public domain affords them and even artists who make derivative works or embellishments on existing works. You want to rewrite Lord of the Rings with zombies for the enemy? Tough, you'll have to go further back in time. I'm shocked 'orc' is allowed in dictionaries let alone other works of fiction.

Oh, please. The entire DEA budget is only $1.9B, so I kind of doubt they spend $10B a year just on pot prevention. And where is the other $90B coming from? /rolleyes Facts - your new best friend: http://www.usdoj.gov/jmd/2010summary/pdf/dea-bud-summary.pdf [usdoj.gov]
Makes you wonder how they can afford those spiffy jackets and caps.

High ranking police all over the planet have built beuracratic kingdoms around the idiotic idea of declaring war on a social problem. In the US where this moronic idea came from it costs $100 billion/year to police just pot alone, yes $100 BILLION every YEAR just to stop people smoking pot. $10 billion of that goes directly to the DEA who LOBBY legislatures to keep the status quo. One american is arrested and has their life ruined every 18 seconds just for smoking pot. UK, Australia, etc, are no different.

Oh, please. The entire DEA budget is only $1.9B, so I kind of doubt they spend $10B a year just on pot prevention. And where is the other $90B coming from? /rolleyes

Facts - your new best friend: http://www.usdoj.gov/jmd/2010summary/pdf/dea-bud-summary.pdf

Sure, there's other things like the National Drug Information Center, and the ICDE, but their total budget is penny change, maybe $0.5B or so.

I love hyperbole as much as the next guy, but seriously, being off by two orders of magnitude is just ignorant.

It just proves that the government is the ultimate conspiracy theorist.

Just for fun: Find how many instances of 'cocaine' and 'conspiracy' show up in Bill Clinton's pardon list.

Threaten? Get real.

You're welcome to read the facts. Understand these facts are not disputed, even though so many people like you don't seem know what really happened. For example

206. When Microsoft learned of Compaq's plans for the Presario, it informed Compaq that it considered the removal of the MSN and Internet Explorer icons to be a violation of the OPK process by which Compaq had previously agreed to abide. For its part, AOL informed Compaq that it viewed the addition of an icon for Spry as a violation of their 1995 agreement. AOL did not object to the presence of a Navigator icon; what concerned AOL was the fact that clicking on this icon brought the user to the Spry ISP. Despite the protests from Microsoft and AOL, Compaq refused to reconfigure the Presario desktop. Finally, after months of unsuccessful importunity, Microsoft sent Compaq a letter on May 31, 1996, stating its intention to terminate Compaq's license for Windows 95 if Compaq did not restore the MSN and Internet Explorer icons to their original positions. Compaq's executives opined that their firm could not continue in business for long without a license for Windows, so in June Compaq restored the MSN and IE icons to the Presario desktop.

But the fact of the matter is... anybody who currently uses Internet Explorer either likes it better than everything else, has no clue of the difference between it and Firefox and whatever else, or the more likely reason that their company forces them to, and that is not going to change no matter how many browsers are included in the OS.

Did you say "fact"? Let's set the way back machine to 1999;

Deposition excerpts of Bill Gates
    January 13, 1999

        [...]

        Q: Mr. Gates, let me show you a document
            marked as Government Trial Exhibit 55. The first
        [511]
            message here purports to be a message to you and
            Mr. Maritz and Mr. Allchin on February 24, 1997,
            at 11:07 P.M.
            Do you see that?

        A: Yes.

        Q: And it talks about a focus group
            report, and it says that most of the people in
            the focus group were Navigator users. And then
            it goes on to say about those Navigator users,
            they said they would not switch, would not want
            to download IE 4 to replace their Navigator
            browser. However, once everything is in the OS
            and right there, integrated into the OS, in their
            face, so to speak, then they said they would use
            it because there would be no more need to use
            something separate.
            Do you see that?

        A: Yes.

        [...]

        Q: Right. The next to last paragraph on
            the fifth page of the exhibit, the one that ends
            with the Microsoft document production stamp
            8179--Do you have that page?

        A: Yes.

        Q: The next to last paragraph of this
            material that was sent to you on February 24th,
            '97, if, in fact, it was, on page 5 it says, "It
            seems clear that it will be very hard to increase
            browser market share on the merits of IE 4 alone.
        [513]
            It will be more important to leverage the OS
            asset to make people use IE instead of
            Navigator."
            Do you see that?

        A: Yes.

        [...]

I look forward to the pending change .. or the automatic update that applies IE the moment EU users connect to the Cloud ..

Ain't gonna happen. Boring numbers may tell the story, but foolish pride wins the day. Silly moderator...

Huh, that's funny. Last I checked you normally don't get jail time for copyright infringement.

Check again:

A defendant, convicted for the first time of violating 17 U.S.C. Â 506(a) by the unauthorized reproduction or distribution, during any 180-day period, of at least 10 copies or phonorecords, or 1 or more copyrighted works, with a retail value of more than $2,500 can be imprisoned for up to 5 years and fined up to $250,000, or both.

Huh, that's funny. Last I checked you normally don't get jail time for copyright infringement.

Depends on how much you copied costs at retail.

The No Electronic Theft ("NET") Act, 17 U.S.C

(a) Criminal Infringement.--Any person who infringes a copyright willfully:

1. for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain, or

2. by the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $1,000, shall be punished as provided under section 2319 of title 18. For purposes of this subsection, evidence of reproduction or distribution of a copyrighted work, by itself, shall not be sufficient to establish willful infringement.

Homicide rates have fluctuated quite a bit over the decades. I really don't think anyone has a decent explanation for it -- not you, not me, and not anyone calling themselves a sociologist either.

Here's a few capsule stats:

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/tables/totalstab.htm

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/hmrt.htm

The lowest rate in the table is 4.0 homicides / 100,000 person-years in 1957. We hit a peak of 10.2 in 1980, and since then have been settled around 5.5 for the last few years.

What factors can explain the increase in the 1960s and the decrease in the 1990s? The seven possibilities you list cannot explain the increase.

Furthermore, even if we explain away the elevated homicide rate of the 1960s-1980s as some sort of temporary phenomenon, all seven of your ideas would seem to argue that the 2000s homicide rate should be significantly lower than the 1950s rate, but the opposite is true.

Homicide rates have fluctuated quite a bit over the decades. I really don't think anyone has a decent explanation for it -- not you, not me, and not anyone calling themselves a sociologist either.

Here's a few capsule stats:

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/tables/totalstab.htm

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/hmrt.htm

The lowest rate in the table is 4.0 homicides / 100,000 person-years in 1957. We hit a peak of 10.2 in 1980, and since then have been settled around 5.5 for the last few years.

What factors can explain the increase in the 1960s and the decrease in the 1990s? The seven possibilities you list cannot explain the increase.

Furthermore, even if we explain away the elevated homicide rate of the 1960s-1980s as some sort of temporary phenomenon, all seven of your ideas would seem to argue that the 2000s homicide rate should be significantly lower than the 1950s rate, but the opposite is true.

The Second Circuit repeatedly explained that its rejection of petitioners' public-performance claim depended on a range of factors: not only that each transmission would be sent to a single recipient, but also that (1) each transmission would be made using a unique copy of the relevant program; and (2) each transmission would be made solely to the person who had previously made that unique copy. See, e.g., Pet. App. 30a-31a, 36a, 39a, 41a.

If I read this right the cable operators are in for one hell of a bill in both storage and replication hardware to create duplicate copies for each user request. Storage is cheap, but since there are also legal (and relatively short) limits on how long you can buffer something before it counts as a copy this tends to complicate scalable data replication. Not impossible, just adds extra cost and complexity. Which no doubt will be passed on.

But by definition we're consumers and we get to vote with our dollars. If this service is a value add pay a little more. If not, don't pay for it. If you aren't given a choice (i.e. added to your bill anyway) drop cable and go Hulu, Apple, Blockbuster, Netflix, or pick your own provider. Nobody is holding a gun to your head to subscribe to cable.

The value adds I see are data integrity and (if Cablevision does this right) the ability to take my recordings with me if I move. Or preserve my recordings if my non-DVR box bites the dust, If you're attached to your content and don't want to invest in your own DVD burner or something this seems worthwhile. I'm not personally this way, but some people are freaky about their DVR content.

But where do we draw the line?

For all of the failings of the the War on (Some) Drugs, the law is actually quite specific on the location of that line.

I'd love to know whether the city followed the Privacy Act statute, http://www.usdoj.gov/opcl/privacyact1974.htm, and assuming they didn't (because this seems a flagrant violation waiting to happen), whether the District Attorney is on their butts. I just finished my annual Privacy Act Training where I work, and I seem to recall a whole bunch of slides about fines, etc. ---oops, read my own link, and found out that it only applies to feds, not states. That sucks.

No, it is not a criminal proceeding. Yes, there is the clayton antitrust act, but MS was *NEVER* charged with criminal violation of it. In fact, it's impossible to charge a company with criminal offense. Who do you put in jail? Not the officers, because the officers weren't convicted of anything.

Let me point you to some real links.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft

"United States v. Microsoft was a set of consolidated *civil* actions filed against Microsoft Corporation on May 18, 1998 by the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) and 20 U.S. states."

The DOJ never prosecuted it as a crime. If you can point me to something credible that says so, i'll be happy to agree with you.

Here's some more links:

http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/f225600/225658.htm

"Civil Action No. 98-1232 (CKK)"

http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/f218300/218339.htm

"Civil Action No. 98-1232 (CKK)"

http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/f200400/200457.htm

"Civil Action No. 98-1232 (CKK)"

etc.. etc...

And no, when they talk about the "Opera Complaint", they're not talking about a criminal complaint. They're talking about a complaint made to the EU Antitrust Commission. A Criminal Complaint is an actual case brought against someone in a court of law.

No, it is not a criminal proceeding. Yes, there is the clayton antitrust act, but MS was *NEVER* charged with criminal violation of it. In fact, it's impossible to charge a company with criminal offense. Who do you put in jail? Not the officers, because the officers weren't convicted of anything.

Let me point you to some real links.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft

"United States v. Microsoft was a set of consolidated *civil* actions filed against Microsoft Corporation on May 18, 1998 by the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) and 20 U.S. states."

The DOJ never prosecuted it as a crime. If you can point me to something credible that says so, i'll be happy to agree with you.

Here's some more links:

http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/f225600/225658.htm

"Civil Action No. 98-1232 (CKK)"

http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/f218300/218339.htm

"Civil Action No. 98-1232 (CKK)"

http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/f200400/200457.htm

"Civil Action No. 98-1232 (CKK)"

etc.. etc...

And no, when they talk about the "Opera Complaint", they're not talking about a criminal complaint. They're talking about a complaint made to the EU Antitrust Commission. A Criminal Complaint is an actual case brought against someone in a court of law.

No, it is not a criminal proceeding. Yes, there is the clayton antitrust act, but MS was *NEVER* charged with criminal violation of it. In fact, it's impossible to charge a company with criminal offense. Who do you put in jail? Not the officers, because the officers weren't convicted of anything.

Let me point you to some real links.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft

"United States v. Microsoft was a set of consolidated *civil* actions filed against Microsoft Corporation on May 18, 1998 by the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) and 20 U.S. states."

The DOJ never prosecuted it as a crime. If you can point me to something credible that says so, i'll be happy to agree with you.

Here's some more links:

http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/f225600/225658.htm

"Civil Action No. 98-1232 (CKK)"

http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/f218300/218339.htm

"Civil Action No. 98-1232 (CKK)"

http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/f200400/200457.htm

"Civil Action No. 98-1232 (CKK)"

etc.. etc...

And no, when they talk about the "Opera Complaint", they're not talking about a criminal complaint. They're talking about a complaint made to the EU Antitrust Commission. A Criminal Complaint is an actual case brought against someone in a court of law.

http://www.usdoj.gov/jmd/afp/07federalforfeiture/index.htm

Far more sensible for MS to move to Mumbai for most of their operations and keep the Dublin setup as it is. Staffing is cheap in Mumbai and there is a fast-growing computer/IT industry there and to top it all off a government that is willing to bend over backwards - for a small fee.

Yeah, that sounds like a great idea. I wouldn't mind seeing senior Microsoft management "subject to a fine of up to $100,000 and imprisonment for up to five years" under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

Rep. Mack "Bodi" White, R-Denham Springs, said he sponsored the bill for Attorney General Buddy Caldwell, to raise money to finance a division in Caldwell's office that investigates Internet crimes, particularly online sex crimes against children.

I agree that sex crime against children are very very bad but I think that if you look at the scope and size of the problems that plague the internet and ranked them in order, you'd find many other things precede sex crimes against children. Like Internet Fraud and Identity Theft. How much money do people lose to things like that? Hint: A lot.

I'm sick and tired of thinking of the children, let's think about everybody for a while. The lil' bastards don't even pay taxes and they're the motivation behind 50% of the legislation in this country.

Oxycontin et al., are very much controlled substances:

http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/pubs/scheduling.html

Pretty much any opiate derivative is going to be on one of the schedules (and I think most of them are going to be I and II; it looks like low dosages are sometimes III).

Gah! Scribd! Here's a plain text link (which also has a link to a PDF).