AOL Time Warner Files Anti-Trust Suit against MS

ChazeFroy writes "This article at the Washington Post says that AOL Time Warner has filed a suit against Microsoft seeking damages from anti-competitive practices over the Netscape browser." Can't say I'm surprised.

Comments

Re:I don't know the details but....

[ajakk]

Actually, you can't be tried on the same case twice in civil law
either. However, the difference between civil law and criminal law
is that in civil law, the plaintiff can be anyone, while in criminal law,
only the government can bring the case.

Who is bringing the suit does matter.

Re:Barf me

[mapmaker]

No, it's not arguable whether Microsoft's business practices were illegal. Microsoft has been found guilty in federal court of breaking federal anti-trust laws.

That's what this AOL suit is all about. In essence their suit is saying "You were found guilty of breaking anti-trust laws. Now we want to be compensated for our loss that resulted from your illegal actions."

I question whether this is good for the public.

[SlashChick]

A couple of years ago (more?) when this whole thing started, I was a staunch supporter of Netscape. I really wanted to see Microsoft lose this one.

Now, however, I worry about things like the following:

"A judge would still have the challenge of choosing a remedy that would restore competition to the Internet browser market. Netscape has only a sliver of the Internet browser market, compared to its dominance several years ago."

One of the "suggested" remedies is to force Microsoft to not include a browser with the OS. I have to question, though, whether this would really be best for the consumer.

Remember back in the day when Windows 95 first shipped? The first thing I did upon loading 95 was to install a web browser. Usually, this meant a tedious process whereby I would use FTP to connect to ftp.netscape.com and go through several directories until I found the correct binary. This was a time-consuming and tedious process. Without a web browser, I couldn't install many of the programs I typically used, including an FTP client and WinZip (used to unpack programs back before the self-extracting .exe was in use.) I either had to have these programs on a CD, or I had to wait for Netscape to download (through command-line FTP, even!)

So I question whether the "stripped-down" version of Windows is a real remedy, as it causes more inconvenience to consumers that way. Rather, I'd like to see Internet Explorer installed and a shortcut to install Netscape on the desktop, much like there are AOL shortcuts on most desktops now. That way, Netscape could be installed locally with little hassle, but there would still be a web browser in the OS for those who didn't care.

A few years ago, I was up in arms about this whole thing. Now, I don't care any more, and I have a feeling that the vast majority of users feel the same way. I like my IE6 with its Google toolbar and Web development tools ("view partial source", anyone?). I would have applauded this decision a while ago, but now I think that Microsoft should just pay AOL its due and move on. This lawsuit is about something that should have been settled years ago, and it's time to worry about .Net, which is the future of Microsoft, instead of IE, which is the past.

Re:This actually makes a lot of sense...

[etceteral]

Much as I dislike them, the government's lawsuit against Microsoft has always looked a little too much like the government getting nervous with MS's cash reserves.

Uhh.... I'm nervous about MS's cash reserves. Actually... any corporation that giant (including AOLTW) should give us all pause about the amount of money they can throw at anything. I'd much rather the government have the money than MS, but I guess AOLTW will have to do (considering simply the justice-for-predatory-business-practices concept.) Until someone wakes up at the FCC that is.

Remember... Your tax money in the early 80's helped give rise to the ARPA/NSFNET. Your money blown on MS-DOS 3.3 helped give rise to Windows 3.

The gov't doesn't like entities it can't push around.

Citizens should be able to push the Government around, corporations should not.
And "free-market" (ie, battle-of-the-corner-Quik-E-Marts) concepts notwithstanding, Citzens alone can't do much to push around a trans-national corporation. Governments can.