Details of MSFT's Antitrust Lobbying

An anonymous sent in linkage to "A new ZDNet article detailing new evidence presented to the judge presiding over the Microsoft anti-trust case. It shows that Microsoft made political contributions during last year's (well, 2000's) elections on a scale never seen before... over $6 million. As comparison, this is four times the amount spent by Enron. It also reveals that Microsoft has been hiring every political lobbyist, and every law firm, with anti-trust expertise and putting them to work on unrelated projects- anything to make them unavailable to work for critics of Microsoft."

Comments

Finally...

[cyclist1200]

I think we all kind of knew this, but it's nice to see someone is looking at the numbers, especially with the campaign contributions.

*gasp*

[DragonPup]

Microsoft doing something unethical to try to get out of a possibly harsh anti-trust penalty?! Surely you jest

-Henry

Accountability

[joebp]

$1.6 million [...] on efforts to influence the U.S. government. [...] Microsoft has been unable to comment.

Wow, don't you love having a corrupt, completely unaccountable and evil entity altering and influencing your government and law makers?

You think the US government would decline contributions from any and all companies who have had their questionable business behaviour legally challenged.

Kinda makes sense, no? A lot like convicts being unable to cast a vote.

Re:The United States Government

[ptrourke]

Make all elections 100% publicly funded (I believe that england does this and each candidate can only spend something like 10,000 pounds

And the British government is completely free of ethically questionable policy decisions. Ever read the The Register?