Slashdot Mirror
How the DOJ/MS Settlement was Reached
Drek was among the many who wrote in to tell us about the following: "Wired is running an article about how the MS/DoJ settlement was reached. More importantly, the DoJ has set up an email address where citizens can send comments about the case: microsoft.atr@usdoj.gov. This might be a good way for Slashdotters to do their civic duty."The address has been around for a bit, but still, a renewed call for comment.
from the does-the-doj-doesn't-run-exchange dept.
I've been staring at that for a few minutes now... what in the hell were they trying to type?
The Microsoft antitrust case was never about protecting consumers' right to choose. It was never about curbing an illegal, unethical monopoly that tries to extend its control over consumers in every possible way. It was about money.
The Justice Department used the Microsoft case to increase their own budgets. Republicans and others who supported Microsoft had no problem with increasing funding to the DoJ because more money for the DoJ means more money to enforce laws against drugs, pornography, civil liberties, and other things that conservatives hate. The DoJ was thrilled when David Boies took their case, because they would get to dole out more funding to a very expensive lawyer and take a cut from the middle. Better funding helps everyone in an organization.
The states had no interest in protecting consumers, either. The states all saw a large antitrust settlement as a gigantic handout - more money from God to drop into the state coffers and spend on pork barrel projects. And since Microsoft has customers in all 50 states, why would any state pass up the opportunity to take part in the windfall? Especially because attorneys general are not elected, so who are they really responsible to?
The antitrust trial has always been about money, and the interests who participated in the whole circus have made billions of dollars off the taxpaying public from it. It is time for a quick and decisive settlement so that the bleeding of wasted dollars can stop. The government has shown time and again that consumers are defenseless against corporations who break the law and defraud them. This time is no different.
~wally
The subject says it all! Spamming this email address with overly anti-Microsoft emails may have the effect of causing intellegent, well thought out emails to be discarded.
Please, please use your head and point out what you honestly believe the problems are (and back them up with facts when possible). We may be able to make a different here. Let's not screw it up!
Web Guy 1: Wow, we got THOUSANDS of emails to the Antitrust email address from citizens over the past hour!
Web Guy 2: In an hour? Must be spam.
Web Guy 1: You're probably right
*Web Guy 1 deletes said few thousand messages*
-Henry
"Useless organic meatbag" -HK-47
Actually, it's not that they think highly of our opinions but that they're legally required to get community feedback on this type of thing. This was originally intended to make it difficult to allow for pro-environmental decisions and such, but now it's coming around to bite the government on the ass.
/must/ be responded to. Sure, the responses will probably be mostly form emails, but they also have to be forwarded to the judge- who is legally required to consider the public interest when approving the decision. So... it's not completely over yet, and yes, this might actually make a different. So... go and write something thoughtful and coherent about why you feel MS as is significantly impacts your freedom as a consumer, and it might actually make some difference.
More importantly, they're legally required to respond. As I understand it, every 'valid' email sent to that address
IAAL,BIANLY
(1) Microsoft claimed all along that the web browser was a useful application which deserved to be tied to Windows. The crucial question they never answered was: what about Microsoft Word? Everybody uses a word processor; why didn't Microsoft add Word's powerful features into Windows, to benefit consumers in the same way they did by adding Explorer's powerful features to Windows?
The answer is that Word had no serious competition, so Microsoft was content to sell it separately and to offer a stripped-down word processor ("WordPad") bundled with Windows.
I've believed all along that a great solution to the tying issue would have been for Microsoft to include a stripped-down basic web browser with Windows, and to sell the full-featured Internet Explorer separately. This would let customers surf the web without buying anything extra, but if they wanted additional features, plenty of competition in the market would give them lots of choices of more-powerful web browsers.
(2) Microsoft defeated Netscape simply because they had the cash, the resources, and the time to copy every one of Netscape's most important products feature-for-feature, and give it away for free. They rarely got things right on the first try, but by bundling browsers and servers in with Windows and by releasing subsequent versions with more features, it was inevitable that they would eventually match Netscape's quality -- and then it was inevitable that customers would choose the free solution over Netscape's. Many of Netscape's customers still remained loyal, and purchased Netscape software rather using Microsoft's give-aways, but still, Netscape was doomed from the very start.
Netscape did the research and development. Microsoft saw what worked, copied it, and gave it away. How could Netscape possibly survive?
More importantly, what does this say about the Next Big Thing, whatever that may be? What incentive does a person have to turn his great idea into a company, when he knows that Microsoft can simply steal his idea and undersell him once he proves that his idea is a success?
(3) Microsoft has a long history of abusing their power, and they've been taken to court for it many times in many different countries. They've learned, however, that if they can get a court case to drag on for years, any ruling will become irrelevant because the competition it was supposed to benefit has long since died off. And not only are they skilled at dragging the proceedings through molasses -- but they also thumb their nose at the government while doing it; were they ever reprimanded for introducing a falsified videotape into evidence two years or so ago?
Any ruling against Microsoft must be strong and unyielding. So far their punishment for shrugging penalties aside has been another court case which has dragged on for another few years, and they'll only ignore the outcome of this one too; this must come to an end.
* First...Netscape ignored small ISPs as potential distributors of Netscape's Web browsing software, effectively ceding that territory to Microsoft for a long time. Through working with those smaller ISPs, Microsoft learned useful information about the ISP business and the needs of ISPs and also obtained valuable feedback about Internet Explorer and the IEAK.
* Second, Netscape lost its reputation as the supplier of cutting-edge Internet technologies. Netscape's Web browsing software is simply not as good as it used to be relative to the competition, with versions 3.0 and 4.0 of Internet Explorer winning the majority of reviews.
* Third, Netscape made the strange decision to de-emphasize its established "Navigator" brand name and emphasize a new "Communicator" brand name, despite the widespread association of Navigator with Web browsing software generally. When you have a brand name rapidly becoming as well known as Band-Aid or Kleenex, you do not wisely abandon or de-emphasize it.
* Fourth, Netscape invested significant time and money going into competition with IBM's Lotus Notes and Microsoft Exchange in the enterprise messaging business, a field in which Netscape had no product experience and was entirely unprepared for the rigorous quality and product support requirements of large corporate customers.
* Fifth, Netscape continued to change its corporate direction every six months, to the extent that nobody was quite sure what kind of company it was. Initially, Netscape was a Web browsing software company; then it was a Web server software company; then it was an intranet company; then it was an extranet company, then it was an enterprise messaging company; then it was an electronic commerce company; then it was a portal Web site company. That sort of corporate identity crisis is unsettling to business partners like ISPs, which look for stability and consistency. Furthermore, these changes in corporate direction also made for changes in priorities that caused Netscape to focus much less on ISPs.
* Sixth, Netscape implemented its referral server program in ways that concerned ISPs. The focus of ISP Select, accessible only by going to Netscape's Web site, made it primarily a tool for switching ISPs and not acquiring new long term users. Although this may have provided advantages to end user customers, from an ISP perspective, it was not a good thing because each ISP's profitability is heavily dependent on maintaining customers for a sufficiently long period of time in order to recover its initial acquisition costs. In addition, Netscape favored large telecommunication companies over smaller entrepreneurial ISPs in the way it set up its ISP Select program.
* Seventh, and perhaps most importantly, Netscape sought to charge ISPs very high prices for distributing Netscape's Web browsing software. Given the highly competitive nature of the ISP business, it was not economically viable for ISPs to pay such prices. Seeking to gouge ISPs was shortsighted, and encouraged them to explore alternatives. Instead of attempting to gouge ISPs, Netscape should have distributed its Web browsing software and related tools for free and thereby promoted customer demand for other software and services that it offered.
Yes, but it is Microsoft, and Microsoft has an outrageous monopoly and indulges in outrageous misbehaviour! Turn your question on its head ... If Microsoft were not a misbehaving monopoly, would we be so zealously seeking its death? I think not.
How far should the government go? As far as it is required to maintain (create) functional competition in the market in which the monopolist misbehaves. That was the original intention of Anti-trust law before Posner et al. emasculated it. If Anti-trust law is now so toothless, that a corporation like Microsoft can't be brought to account by it, it is, IMHO, time to rewrite it.
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke