Microsoft Promotions Turn Up in USPS Offices

Several readers, like this Anonymous Coward, have written with links to a letter from Cliff Crouch on macintouch.com. "I stumbled across this letter submitted to a web site I frequent. Apparently Microsoft has promotional displays with free WindowsXP promotional software in U.S. Post Offices."

Comments

Re:Here's the reason

[NMerriam]

And what happend to "innocent until proven guilty"?

MS has been proven guilty -- the only thing under review is what the penalty will be.

Re:Regardless

[elmegil]

it's just marketing, not monopolistic business tactics.

And exactly where did the article say it was monopolistic business practices?

Seems to me everyone is bitching because of the blatant conflict of interest on the part of the government. "One hand is suing you, the other hand is selling you advertising space that isn't apparently being sold to any other advertiser."

This is still a valid Public Policy decision

[i1984]

The advertisement of Microsoft software in the United States Post Office should be subject to public policy review, irrespective of the Postals Service's technical corporate status.

Microsoft is a convicted monopolist that has shown no remorse for its actions, and scarcely acknowledges that it has done any wrong. Ideally, the government would not be helping to pormote this malignancy.

It has been repeated many times throughout this discussion, first that the Post Office is part of the US government, only to have that assertion contradicted to the effect that the Postal Service is actually an independant corporation established and run by the government -- posters have also pointed out that the Federal Government is the sole shareholder, appoints the directors, and as needed bails the service out to the tune of a billion dollars.

All this is missing the point: the government shouldn't be helping spread the monopoly even if the post office is technically independent. The service still answers to Congress, and does arguably more so than most other businesses. This sort of issue is well within the domain of public policy -- even if no policies currently exist that are relevant to this situation.

In a broader sense, corporations in general also answer to Congress (even in cases like Enron where they'd rather not!), and by extension we regulate all of them in numerous ways as well. In comparison to wholly indepenent and totally private corporations it should be easy to shape a public policy in regards to a pseudo-governmental organization like the post office -- even if it means appointing a board of directors who agree that convicted monopolists shouldn't have the privilege of advertising in Postal Service buildings.

This is also why this is a relevant Slashdot story. It involves what amounts to a public policy decision (or lack thereof) that affects technology that the Slashdot community cares about: Microsoft, monopolies, the blurred line between the public and private sector, and public policy regarding these topics.