Microsoft, Feds Revise Settlement Agreement

An Anonymous Coward writes: "This AP article writes of some changes negotiated by MS and the Justice Department to the anti-trust settlement. MS urges Judge Kollar-Kotelly to accept the settlement it negotiated with the Justice Department b/c doing otherwise would raise constitutional issues. Please."

Comments

constitutional issues?

[Anonymous Coward]

Did M$ take the 5th on their source code?

Re:constitutional issues?

[nahtanoj]

No, but the programmers did plead temporary insanity.

nahtanoj

Still a complete sell-out by the government

[vlad_petric]

... It still doesn't require M$ to disclose office file formats or open-up protocols

The Raven

Ohter news regarding this....

[lemonhed]

It was also reported that a federal judge overseeing the Microsoft antitrust case has dismissed a suit brought by a nonprofit antitrust group claiming that the parties didn't fully disclose communication related to the proposed settlement. See this link

And this...... Microsoft has filed a new motion in U.S. District Court to block media access to four depositions that have already been taken in its antitrust case, as well as one that has not yet occurred. See this link

And this.... A great place to get all the goods on the case... visit here!!!

And finally.... A great place to get the latest press releases Click Here!!!

A Little Fun...

[webword]

Don't you wish that you had the resources to play games with the courts when you got parking and speeding tickets?

A Great Deal of Misunderstanding and Wild charges

[gehrehmee]

Sony Corp., for example, had complained to the government that the provision "would diminish Sony's ability to assert its patents ... and thereby may enable Microsoft to expand its power into new areas."

Microsoft described those complaints as "a great deal of misunderstanding and wild charges that Microsoft would use the right to misappropriate the intellectual property of others."

"Well, sure the settlement would give us the right to misappropriate the intellectual property of others. But we're genuinely insulted that anyone would suggest we would use that right..."

Microsoft's Bill of Rights

[dubdays]

(I) Freedom of monopolies.
(II) Right to bear arms against the competition.
(III) Right for a BSA henchman to occupy your home or place of business.
(IV) Right to search everyone's computer without their consent.
(V) The right for Microsoft to lie in defense.
(VI) The right to draw out a trial for years to extract every last dime from taxpayers.
(VII) Right to trial by judges who are technologically illiterate.
(VIII) Right to inflict cruel and unusual punishment against anyone using a non-Microsoft OS.
(IX) Microsoft has numerous inalienable rights not granted to anyone else.
(X) Any rights not explicitly granted to Microsoft are exclusively reserved by Microsoft for future litigation.

Face Saving Measures

[alexander.morgan]

The changes to the settlement agreement are just a way for the Justice Department to save face. The government surrendered. Considering MS spending during the last election, it is obvious that an enormous amount of lobbying went on behind the scenes. Current law does not consider that bribery. But is it surprising that MS does not want to advertise that fact in open court? Or that the Justice Department does not want to comment on MS maneuvering behind the scenes? The spin makers are simply trying to make the Government's surrender look a little less obvious.

In the meantime it is obvious that Microsoft has no intention of playing fair, or by the rules. Locking competing browsers out of MSN is only one example. Microsoft is working to become a toll booth for all Internet access. If they are successful, then Bill Gates will either be the first Trillionaire--or maybe we'll finally have a revolution ;-)

Another example of Microsoft claiming victory is a friend who upgraded MS Explorer, because she heard about all the security holes. The upgrade also conveniently removed her Eudora icon from the desktop and replaced it with all kinds of spamicons (although they didn't go as far as actually removing the program or her files).

More? Need I mention Passport? How about XP Forced Activation and "Managed Applications"? Sounds good, until you realize that it gives Microsoft complete control over who can play in their sandbox.

Through the Quest DSL deal, they are even trying to control the pipe.

The bottom line: Microsoft has declared victory, and they are behaving like it. You will be assimilated, ...

John Ashcroft

[hrieke]

It was noted that he took money from Enron and disqualified himself from the case. It is also noted that he took money from MS and has not disqualified himself from the case.
Hummm....

Microsoft -- ruthless and lucky (and ruthless)

[blueskyred]

Microsoft pulled every single trick in the book and basically won the case. They got lucky with Judge Penfeld Jackson talking a bit too much to the press... but that wasn't enough. The main thing is that since we had a change at the White House, and therefore the DOJ, everything about this case has been a sham.

If Gore was given the election (he did win it, but he wasn't given the keys) would this case have been settled? If it were settled, would it have been so generous? (Even with the current changes, it is a sweetheart deal.)

Here is a small list, off the top of my head, of the things Microsoft has done or has used to get an advantage in this case:

• Delayed the case from coming to trial for almost two years
• Made the trial take much longer than needed
• Committed perjury -- remember that icon in the system tray that gave it all away?
• Claimed in court that Linux was a threat while simultaneously dismissing it in the press and in the industry
• Argued that if they didn't get the result they liked that they would appeal to the Supreme Court
• Judge Penfeld Jackson rules that Microsoft was guilty of illegally maintaining a monopoly -- this was on April 3, 2000. He then talks way too much to the press
• When indications were that they wouldn't win in the Supreme Court, Microsoft tried in the court of appeals AGAIN
• Court of appeals vacates Jackson's breakup judgment
• Gore win the election but the White House goes to Bush
• Bush talks-down the economy. Microsoft uses this as an excuse to end the trial as soon as possible, for the good of the economy.
• September 11th. Microsoft uses that grizzly act as an excuse to end the trial as soon as possible, for security (??) reasons as well as for the good of the country. "We don't need internal strife in a time of war" or something like that...
• Justice gives a sweetheart deal. 9 states go with it while 9 others do not, including California and Massachusetts.
• Microsoft makes some slight changes to the agreement in an attempt to make people happy. It barely works, but hey, they were working "in good faith."
• To quote an article from Salon.com, Microsoft also argued that the trial judge's role in approving the proposed settlement is "almost ministerial," and urged her to defer to the judgment of the Justice Department about whether the agreement "is the most appropriate mechanism to resolve the competing interests at stake." To do otherwise, the company argued, would risk constitutional questions over the separation of powers between the executive and judicial branches of government.

Re:Same tactics, different point of attack.

[TandyMasterControl]

They are trying to threaten her with the same reaming the Court of Appeals laid down on Stanley Sporkin back in 96 (?)
Sporkin refused to authorize a consent decree settlement agreed upon by DOJ and Microsoft because he thought it wasn't strong enough as a remedy. The Appeals Court which is full of nice reasonable people like David Sentelle who for example, had overturned Oliver North's conviction and had also appointed Ken Starr as special prosecutor since the previous special prosecutor wasn't sufficently rabid, threw Sporkin off the case saying he didn't have the authority to withhold his signature to a settlement reached by plaintiff and defendant (one wonders why we have judges at all then).
However, the big difference between these two cases and what was used to hang Sporkin, was that an argument could be made from things he had said that he believed not just that the remedy to be ineffectually weak, but that he wanted the remedy to include corrections for Microsoft abuses that DOJ never argued or tried to prove in the case. The Microsoft/DOJ as appellants argued that this was an inappropriate blurring of function: Judge Sporkin couldn't be both Judge and Prosecutor. Blowing this minute and dubious distinction about remedy and sufficient remedy up into a separation of powers type argument, the appeals court went on to "reluctantly" accept Microsoft's contention that since Sporkin had mentioned having read a book , Harddrive, about Microsoft he was unduly biased against them and that bias was the motive behind his finding against them and his intent to apply a remedy stricter and more far reaching than DOJ wanted.
The consent decree was handed then to Thomas Penfield Jackson for his immediate signature, (who must have also wondered why a rubber stamp at DOJ wasn't used instead, since according the Appeals Court his signature was non-optional.)

Later on, when they could get around to voiding the entire content of Sporkin's finding against Microsoft, the COA did so. This is what shocked Judge Jackson into carefully separating his findings of fact from his findings of law, as he said himself, when predictably Microsoft was brought back into the courts again on a antitrust beef. For reasons of tradition, and because appeals courts are not supposed to try cases but sort out the application of law to verdicts and findings, Appeals Courts tend to leave findings of fact alone, and address only legal conclusions of lower courts. As it happened they did exactly as Jackson predicted, unfortuately his comments to a writer may have helped justify the obstruction from above, at least to the public.

As others have said before, if Judge K. is persuaded by the dissenting nine states and the Tunney comments and she tries to apply realistic remedies to Microsoft she will find her tits caught in the same big wringer.

This wayward reference to "separation of powers" is Microsoft and the Asscleft DOJ reminding Judge K. about what has happened to her predecessors on this case, particularly Sporkin. It would be really great if she had the balls to charge right back into the lion's den and force the Appeals Court to brazenly and shamelessly save Microsoft from their guilt once again! Are we not entertained?

Meritless complaints? I don't think so.

[Linux_ho]

Microsoft defended its decision to disclose to the trial judge only its antitrust discussions with officials in the executive branch, but not with those in Congress. Records of such contacts are required under the 1974 Tunney Act, passed to guarantee that a company settling antitrust charges doesn't improperly lobby the government. Critics of Microsoft's disclosures -- including former Sen. John Tunney, D-Calif., who wrote the law -- accused the company of failing to disclose all its conversations with U.S. government officials.

Microsoft called those "meritless complaints," and said Tunney's opinion, "coming over 25 years after enactment of the statute, is irrelevant as a legal matter."

I am just astonished at the arrogance of the Microsoft legal team. I hope it bites them on the ass the way it did with Judge Jackson. Sure, Judge Kollar-Kotelly doesn't technically have to consider Tunney's opinion, but I think it will pretty well rule out any argument about the intent of the statute as it is written, so it's not exactly irrelevant.

Microsoft tried (apparently successfully, so far) to win the case through lobbying rather than in the courts, which is exactly what the Tunney act was designed to prevent. The New York Times said as much in the statement they sent to the DOJ in the Tunney Act public comment period. It's a long way from being a "meritless complaint."

I am so disgusted with the political interference in this case. The settlement would be considered weak even if Microsoft hadn't already been convicted of wrongdoing.

The fact that the Justice Department backed down to this slap-on-the-wrist after winning the case and convicting Microsoft of illegal activities smacks heavily of back-room deals and under-the-table politics. Microsoft obviously has the resources to engineer a political victory. Why didn't they disclose their meetings with members of Congress? A cursory reading of the Tunney act makes it clear as day that they should have done so.

The free market argument

[hawk]

I also believe in market forces. In fact, like most economists, I *strongly* support free markets.

This does *not* mean that monopolies should be left on their own. I want them stopped *not* because the government can run things better, or any illusion that the government can "fine-tune" the economy (all the evidence says it can't), but because monopolies tamper with my precious markets.

The very *problem* with monopolies is that they interefere with markets, and stop us from receiving the benefits of the market.

hawk, baffled by the supposedly free-market folks that are willing to let the markets be abused like this.