Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Bush Administration Stops Microsoft Breakup

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the you-knew-it-was-coming dept.

The U.S. Department of Justice announced that it had been instructed by the Bush Administration to cease its drive to break up Microsoft, which has already been found guilty of violating U.S. anti-trust law in a complaint filed by the Federal Government and 19 states. See the BBC or CNN for more. It isn't clear what wristslap, errr, remedy the Justice Department will seek instead. Update: 09/06 15:21 PM GMT by M : Declan McCullagh of Wired notes: "The text of the DOJ announcement is here. Wired News has an article. Also, the DOJ says a 'Senior Antitrust Division Official' will brief reporters at the department's DC headquarters at 11:30 am ET, so look for some followup stories from that."

3 of 979 comments (clear)

  1. So much for being "tough on crime" by werdna · · Score: 5, Interesting

    How can Ashcroft defend his tough-as-nails posture regarding alleged computer crime by a small-time russian company who threatens nobody, while refusing to pursue an in-the-bag conviction already won in part, of a notorious bad actor whose conduct will affect virtually every computer user on the planet?

    Ashcroft's new motto: "We're tough on crime, except when they donated to our campaign fund."

  2. Wait... by Balinares · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It might be more complicated than it looks.

    I'm not sure I understand the DOJ announcement, but doesn't it say it wants to take action immediately? If I understand it right, it claims a break-up would take too long.

    In short, they want to punish Microsoft effectively before XP hits the shelves.

    Oh, geeze, I really hope I read that right... It might actually be a good thing, you know...

    --

    -- B.
    This sig does in fact not have the property it claims not to have.
  3. NOT exactly by Brand+X · · Score: 5, Interesting
    From the LA Times article:

    WASHINGTON -- Reversing a Clinton-era legal strategy, the Bush administration announced today it will no longer seek the breakup of Microsoft and wants to end the historic antitrust case against the software maker as quickly as possible.

    ...

    During a ceremony on the White House lawn, President Bush declined to comment directly on the case but told reporters: "During the course of the campaign and throughout my administration I have made it abundantly clear that on issues relating to lawsuits -- to ongoing lawsuits -- that I expect the Justice Department to handle that in a way that brings honor and thought to the process.

    "I respect and hold our attorney general in high esteem and I honor the work that he's done and I'm going to leave it at that," Bush said.


    Now you might speculate that they're taking the quote out of context, or that there might be another implication to what he said (or almost didn't say), but to only go from one source and ignore all others is clearly very poor investigation.
    --
    -- Still waiting for the Nike endorsement