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

And, we have no one to blame but ourselves.

[Bowie J. Poag]

We elected the politicans who made the laws in the first place which allowed campaign contributions to be illegal. Infact, during the last election, we didn't want the guy who was willing to do away with them. We wanted to play Bush vs. Gore instead.

Before you run off pointing fingers at Microsoft for doing what they are within the scope of the law to do, ask yourself where the core of the corruption sits. Its not with them, or the politicians. Its us, and our lack of desire to make our elected officials accountable for their actions.

Lobbying wouldn't exist if we as a people decide not to allow it. Anything beyond it would be bribery.

Cheers,

Re:And, we have no one to blame but ourselves.

[1010011010]

The only truly effective Campaign Finance Reform is to reduce the power of the federal government. As long as the turnip remains large, and growing larger, every goat on the planet will be fighting for a piece of it.

If the Federal government were actually limited in scope (refer to Constitution here), then there would be a lot less to lobby for, to "contribute soft money" for, etc.

I would like to not only limit the power of the government, but prevent lawyers from holding office.

Re:And, we have no one to blame but ourselves.

[bmongar]

Being a politician should be a volunteered public service, and no one should ever be allowed to make any money from doing such work

That would create a class based government system (as if it isn't already). Because then only rich people could afford to serve the government, because the working class would have to work to eat.

Re:And, we have no one to blame but ourselves.

[SerpentMage]

It really does not have anything to do with reducing the power of an individual government. What has to do with is empowerment of the people.

I live in Switzerland which is a true democracy. In Switzerland every person has the right to vote yes or no to certain decisions. The government is only there for the details. Sure Swiss vote quite a bit, but the power is with the Swiss people and only the Swiss people. And in that case lobbying has absolutely no effect unless of course the lobbyists decide to give money to each Swiss.

True democracy works and it should be used more often in other countries.

Re:And, we have no one to blame but ourselves.

[GregWebb]

Why oh why does this sort of thing get continually moderated up?

Regulation is, like it or not, extending punishing of theft and injury laws to companies. Regulating companies stops them from harming their workers, their neigbours, their customers because they can. It also stops them from doing violence to other companies - which, let's be honest, is exactly what MS is currently on trial for, using its strength to force other companies out of the market or their products onto customers at nasty terms.

You actually contradict yourself. To quote, "As long as a company can buy an advantage in the marketplace ... there will be a place for lobbying, bribes, etc". How, exactly, are we stopping companies buying market advantage by removing regulation of them?

Subsidies are a harder argument, but here goes...

Remove subsidies of all kinds (I'm including Social Security benefits here, they seem analagous) and you cause problems. You know all about needing money to make money? Well, how do you get that first step without money from _somewhere_? Anyway, you create people who simply can't earn a living (and where this isn't necessarily a permanent condition), so they either die or live from crime. Think what happens in a recession here - the very poorest either die or cause a crimewave. A crimewave causes clear problems for society as a whole, and ends up with a number of them locked up. So, what do you end up with? A larger prison population (expensive to maintain) and a smaller labour force, which pushes up wages and makes it harder to get ourt of recession. Eventually, you end up with smaller economic capacity this way because you simply don't have the workers you need. Whereas if you give them the money / resources they need to see out the recession, they remain economically active throughout the problems (so help maintain economic capacity) and are available to work afterwards, so keeping costs down due to a large labour force. Oh, you've also likely lost the majority of the crime which is good on its own but also reduces your expensive-to-maintain prison population.

Or maybe health benefits. If the poorest can't get treatment then you have an increased potential for epidemic which can spread into the wider population. They're not likely to be particularly healthy to start with (worse diet & living conditions, can't afford better) so they're more susceptible, plus the poorer sections of society tend to live together, helping it spread quickly among them. Deny them medical treatment and ailments can run through them at ridiculous rates, then spread into the wider population. Also, deny them medical treatment and some will die, some will be disabled in some way and some will have to miss work. In each case you've removed someone from the available cheap labour pool, maybe others who now have to care for them too...

What about subsidising companies? Well, statistically speaking, I understand that the major driver for economic growth is small companies, not large. Except that they can't exist without seed capital from somewhere... Remove government subsidies and some won't survive, so lower economic growth as a whole.

Or another example, farm subsidies. The EU Common Agricultural Policy is a mess, I won't deny it. However... In the UK, we have many areas where sheep are farmed on open hillsides traditionally. These are only viable due to subsidies, because the animal densities are too low. Remove the subsidies and the sheep go. Remove the sheep, though, and the land quickly becomes covered in long grass and bracken. At which point it's considered less beautiful and is certainly less suitable for walking. You then have no farming income - and an area that only has tourism left, but can't any more attract people to look at the views and walk the hills because the environment has changed. You need the sheep as lawnmowers...

The current system is a long way from being perfect. Heck, I'm a LibDem (http://www.libdems.org.uk/) so I'm working to change it in many ways. But, strangely enough, many of the current aspects of government have been set up because they look like a good idea and retained because they prove that they are a good idea! I'd LOVE to see corporations stripped of legal personhood, too, for example, and see no reason for them to make any political donations. Heck, while we're thinking about corporate political influence, it seems daft that sitting legislators can hold directorships in companies, or that individual companies can own large chunks of the news media. Or that foreign-owned companies can own any. Who says that an Australian run media isn't spinning the news to favour Australian interests over local? As you can see here, we have clear examples of corporate political speech needing legal controls to benefit the people...

Posters in general and moderators in particular, _please_ think a little harder about this 'smaller government rules' (whoops, pun unintentional...) argument. It may sound good - and some of it may indeed be good - but look at the details and much of it is utter rubbish. Really.

Re:fp

[rm-r]

Political donations, especially soft money, SUCK.

Parties should be limited as to how much they can spend during a campaign (as they are in Europe) and should maybe even be paid for through taxation- it would cost less thant 1% of the military budget and is a far bettter way of safeguarding democracy.

Yet another reason...

[thesolo]

Why we need to bring soft money donations to an end! If these types of unregulated donations are allowed to continue, we will just see a further buying & selling of the US government (yes, it IS possible, believe it or not!).

This news probably doesn't surprise too many people in this crowd, I think we all knew that MS was pretty generous with soft monies, but it's very nice to see an article like this. The best part of the entire article? The paragraph about the $25k given to buy off South Carolina's Attorney General.

P.S. Anyone else amazed by the fact that there is a place called Chevy Chase, Maryland?!

This just in....Microsoft spent MONEY!!!

[TheConfusedOne]

Amazing! Astounding! Unbelievable even!

Yeah, it's underhanded, maybe even a bit immoral, the problem is, *IT'S NOT ILLEGAL*!!

Both sides are throwing money at this, unsurprisingly MS is throwing more. First off, it would be a violation of their fiduciary responsiblities if they didn't defend themselves as vigrorously as possible. Heck, they've already crossed the line of good taste/credibility in their PR and lobying campaigns in the past, why stop now?

If we really want to do something about activities like this we need to correct the current political system. Now, I'll just remain in the legions who complain about it and don't have a good solution (the problem is WAY beyond my meager geek abilities to grok). The one item of interest I have heard is that the current proposed reforms may have allowed people to donate MORE money instead of less.

We vote with our pocketbooks, Microsoft votes with its. They just happen to have a slightly bigger one. Finally, it's ironic that the concept of "free" speech is used to defend monetary contributions...

Re:This just in....Microsoft spent MONEY!!!

[Kefaa]

A poor example: if I were convicted of embezzling $1 million from a bank, and donated $100,000 to re-elect the prosecutor. It would be fair for the judge to question a surprisingly light sentence offered in a plea bargain.

While it is not illegal, it is the reason for the Turney Act. If it can be shown they were using their money to influence the outcome of the penalty phase of the trial, the judge must consider it before accepting the agreement. In fact, it would be a reason to force the government to go back and renegotiate, or if the judge considered any outcome between the parties tainted, she could enforce her own.

Based on past statements from her, I question if this formality has any influence at all. But, I want to give her the benefit of the doubt. It is not a perfect system, but it is a second check of the process.

[IANAL--YMMV]

Isn't this just like ...

[Quixotic Raindrop]

... charges that Microsoft buys (bought?) shelf space in stores to prevent competing products from even being visible?

So, in other words, this is really nothing new. This is Microsoft being Microsoft; now, does anyone seriously doubt that this is an organization bent on doing whatever it takes, including things that are not just immoral, or violate common sense, but possibly things that are criminal, in order to ... what, make money?

Has American society fallen so far into the pit of jade and cynicism that we shrug off the Enrons and Microsofts of the world as merely maladjusted money-seeking sycophants, instead of being so violently outraged that we take every chance to make them wish they'd never even started a business? What the hell are we doing?

Every person who reads about Microsoft's behavior should be so sickened that they vomit. This is not normal. This is not acceptable. This is not "business as usual" in the United States. Just because it seems to happen a lot does not make it something we should tolerate, not even for a millisecond, and not for any reason.

*Simply Shocked*

[Alien54]

Shocked, simply shocked, I tell you.

right

Of course you realise, this is the Microsoft philosophy applied to the legal field. Microsoft has had a history of buying up tecnologies and expertise, many of which have simply disappeared, never to see the light of day again.

It is perhaps the only real innovation that I know of, to take their billions and buy up anything their legal opponents could use to convict them of their crimes.

I am sure other big companies are taking notes. This convicts them even more in my mind.

Like I have said before, every time I turn around there is something else that comes out and dirties their reputation in my eyes. Heck, if PR LapDogs like ZDNet are taking shots at MS, you know rats are starting to leave the ship.

The United States Government

[gonar]

The Best Government Money Can Buy (tm)

The real problem here is the idea of "corporate personhood" which extends all the civil rights meant for people (including buying congressmen, senators, presidents and supreme court justices) to corporations.

individual people, and and not-for-profit groups can not compete with the cash generated by a large corporation.

there is one easy solution to this (unfortunately, it's not easy:).

make all elections 100% publicly funded (I believe that england does this and each candidate can only spend something like 10,000 pounds), ban any political advertizing by any non candidate which mentions, depicts or hints where a particlar candidate or party stands on an issue.

Re:The United States Government

[praedor]

Whoo-hoo! Vindication! Proof! If you read the article, it ends making my point:

"The analysis of donations by political party shows some surprising results. While Microsoft donations favored Republicans (who got 72 percent of the money from 1995 to 1998), its employees were more inclined to support the Democrats. Democratic PACs received $222,100 from the company's employees, compared to the $42,875 for Republican PACs. "

So the CORPORATION of M$ which is actually Gates, gives its money and holds positions counter to the vast majority of its own employees. A corporation cannot have rights, only INDIVIDUALS have rights. This corporation, like virtually all such monsters, does NOT hold legitimate points of view, it only presents the point of view of the CEO/President, or (some) board members while the majority of what makes up the corporation is ignored.

Mantra: Only individuals have rights, not corporations. Corporations are NOT people.

Corporations

[Grax]

Personally I believe that the modern legal system is becoming more and more corporate and money controlled.

The problem is that when a politician is elected due to large campaign contributions, he can't help but think that the contributions put him there rather than the votes of the citizens. He is elected, supposedly, to represent the needs of the citizens, but instead he ends up feeling like he is elected to represent the needs of his financiers (even an individual with good moral fiber will have this difficulty).

A politician "should" be concerned first and foremost about how each decision will impact a private citizen. For example, how will DMCA impact the average consumer (loss of their fair use rights), how will extension of copyright laws affect the average individual (they will have access to no new public domain material in their lifetime), etc.

It is getting to the point that the individuals need to hire lobbyists to plead their case with the politicians. Except that the politician was hired in the first place to be our lobbyist.

Campain reform, not Campain finance reform...

[wowbagger]

I assert that it is not campain finance reform, but campain reform that we need.

Consider first why candidates need the huge amounts of money to be elected. They in effect need to run two entirely different campains - once for the primary, and once for the election. As a result, the cost more than doubles. Now, the thought is that once they've won the primary, their party will contribute to the main election. This is true but irrelevant to this discussion: the party must raise the money, and thus the need for money still is doubled.

Now, I assert that anytime there is a demand, there will be a supply. Consider the origins of soft money - in the old days you could directly support your candidate with any amount of cash you wished. This was deemed a bad thing and so limits were placed on direct contributions. Bang - you now have created "soft money" that doesn't get covered under the hard money laws. Do you really expect that as long as candidates need money they won't find a way around soft money? And realize this: if you put up a piece on your personal web page about how you feel candidate X is [good|bad], that can be considered a "soft" contribution. Do you really want to give the government that power?

Now, consider the 2000 elections. They were very close - so close that the actual vote difference between the candidates was lost in the noise floor. Was this really because the people were split 50/50 in liking Bush and Gore? Most people who voted for [Bush|Gore] did so because they disliked [Bush|Gore] marginally less than they disliked [Gore|Bush].

I assert that we need to make the following two changes to the system:
1) Allow anybody registered to vote to vote in any primary.
2) Require a binding "none of the above" entry on all elections.

Let's examine the results these two changes would have had on the 2000 US presidential election:
1) By allowing anybody registered to vote in any primary, we would de-emphasize the importance of the primaries and pull the results of the primaries back from the extremes. I doubt that Bush would have won the Republican primary, and I doubt that Gore would have won the Democrat primary. Additionally, candidates such as McCain would have had a much better chance of getting support.
2) By having a binding "none of the above", even if the election had been Bush/Gore, the bulk of people could have voted None Of the Above. Had None Of the Above won, then NOBODY in that election could hold the office, and there would have to be a new election. Ask yourself this: no matter your political affiliation, if you could have had a chance to block both Bush and Gore in favor of a shot at a better candidate, would you?

I assert that with these two changes, the following things would happen:

1) The third party candidates wouldn't run in the first race. Instead, they would encourage the voters to vote NOTA in the first race and knock the big boys out.
2) The big parties would no longer be able to take this "This is our guy, take it or leave it" attitude. Thus, they would tend to field more moderate candidates.
3) Because of 1 and 2, more people would feel their vote mattered, and we would get more turnout.
4) Because the primaries could no longer be used to limit our choices, they would become unimportant and would fad away. Remember - the primaries are entirely outside the election process as described in the Constitution.

Now, I don't assert that these changes would prevent lobbying by corporations. However, if a party knew that they could no longer annoint a golden child in the primaries and force them down our throats, they might be more aware of how the PEOPLE feel about an issue, rather than MONEY.

Discussion?

$6M vs $38,000M

[peter303]

Microsoft is sitting on a $38 billion pile of cash. $6 million is 0.15 cents on the dollar.

Ralph Nader says this cash pile is distortion of capitalism. Traditionally companies pay out dividends once they have grown into profitibility. The stockholders are being screwed.

Re:Enron

[Speare]

Currently, Enron is the posterchild for the reason for campaign finance reform. If our politicians are swayed by the campaign contributions of Enron's scale, what corruption is seeded by a larger sum of money? If the advertising power of the campaigns is knocked askew by some soft money, isn't it knocked asunder by larger sums?

For a few stories linking Enron to campaign finance, you can look at this topic list on Salon.com. The topic is campaign finance. The headlines mostly discuss Enron in recent weeks.

Re:Accountability

[Speare]

In this case, Microsoft had been challenged, but not yet convicted. Ever hear of a little concept known as "Innocent until PROVEN guilty"? Were this not the case, simply waging unfounded allegations against any person or company could (and likely would) impact that entity strongly for the worse.

Um, no, in the antitrust suit, Microsoft has been found guilty and that ruling has been upheld on appeal already. It is just the forms of remedy, the corporate equivalent of sentencing the convicted criminal, that is of question now.

The real shocker....

[Odinson]

Is that no other news sources seem to be carrying this until now.

Are they afraid or just not that observant? This is definatly newsworthy.

The ability to companies to donate money to politicians but shield which politician it is going to to is what is so evil about soft money. At least in the 20s the press could drag a politician through the mud based on his own specific donations. But what would the headline be now? at worst..."Republican party takes donations from Microsoft."

Campain money IS NOT SPEECH. It's just the opposite.

Re:Accountability

[Speare]

I was not suggesting that Microsoft's campaign funding and lobbying to this date has been illegal; in fact, it's quite legal but increasingly repugnant to the citizenry who wants fair elections in the future.

However, if a convict cannot vote, perhaps it is time to say that a convicted monopolist corporation cannot contribute money for some term.

For whatever reason, a corporation is in all senses an individual in our law. The punishments for breaking corporate laws should be such that they restrict the otherwise granted rights. No free speech campaigning, no lobbying, no tax break incentives in new properties, no sealed oem contracts, pick an appropriate level of restrictions for the conviction.

Jaded...nothing new really

[Anonymous Coward]

As a Canadian, reading the reactions of various slashdotters, I find it very interesting.

We as a tech community are so ready to shout that Microsoft is evil. You guys are forgetting that this is the American way (which applies to us up too...). Remember those Railroad Tycoons, the Oil Tycoons? The Rockafellers of the world are still around. Why do you think Texas has so many industries that could have been put elsewhere? (Count how many military bases that there are in Texas?)Prominent Texans ensured that Texas was given the goods, and in our present system of government they did not only what they could, but what was expected and did what benefited Texans and especially those prominant citizens. (Sorry Texans, but its the only example I know of as an ignorant canuck ;)

Using money to influence government policy is how government has functioned for a long time. Remember in Ancient Rome, being in position of political power made you rich as businesses petitioned for your support. This is not going to change anytime soon unless we as a society decide that is unacceptable.

America is the land of the free. Its the land of who has got more $$$. The more dough you have, the more freedom you have to do as you wish for good or ill.

Don't piss on M$ because they are doing what is in their best interests and that they have the freedom to do so. Its disgusting that they did do it, but I am much more revolted that the so called democracy of the world is nothing more than auction and that THIS seems news to people . We have to as a society against this truly undemocratic behaviour.

Hopefully this will serve as a case in point for seriously look at our Politicians and their Political Parties and how they govern us.

Though I suppose it could be worse... at least we pretend to have democracy.

Don't mind me though I am just a jaded youth....

A contrarian viewpoint.

[hey!]

I'm not so sure about eliminating soft money. Let me take a contrarian view.

The candidates take the money and use it to buy ads so they can reach the public. This is not a serious problem, it's what comes after that is a serious problem -- the quid pro quo that the donor expects.

So the problem is not money, it is the influence of people who have money.

Making money harder for candidates to raise doesn't mean the need for money goes away -- quite the contrary. The candidates have to work harder for every dollar. The marginal value of every additional dollar raised is higher to the candidate because of the general scarcity of funds. On the flip side, the cost of buying influence drops. Let me propose this law of political fundraising:

To the degree to which campaign money is dear, the cost of political influence is cheap.

As proof, let us suppose that Enron and Microsoft succeeded in buyin our federal government for a few paltry millions. This is unconscionable! It should cost billions to have this kind of influence; influence buying should require bribery on such a grand scale it either prices people out or requires a brazeness so affronting to the common votor that it becomes self defeating.

We should also repeal the notion that corporations are persons with respect to campaign contributions -- it's a legal invitation to bribery.