Slashdot Mirror
DOJ Argues in Favor of MS Settlement
hpa writes: "It is described in this article on CNET the Department of Justice is arguing in favour of the proposed settlement, because the government's case was too weak to impose additional penalties on Microsoft. Somehow this seems like a very odd thing to me, effectively the prosecution is pleading on the part of the defendant..." There's also an AP story.
The article states the the DOJ was explaining why they settled, not defending MSFT.
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Defense: Your honor, our client committed no crime.
DOJ: Yes, he did. He committed lots. Look, we have evidence.
Defense: Your honor, our client has committed crimes and is sorry.
Judge: Oh, well, in that case.
DOJ: Your honor! We demand a punishment!
Defense: A punishment? Are you some sort of barbarian, with your "punishing"?
DOJ: Your client will be punished!
Defense: Will not!
DOJ: Will too!
Defense: Will not!
[...3 hours later]
DOJ: Will not! I mean! Wait, that was no fair I...
Defense: Ha! Sucka!
Judge: Case dismissed!
-l
It's pathetic when the U.S. Government can take a hard line on terrorism in traditional forms, but is cowed by a multinational corporation that has been demonstrated to be involved in monopolistic forms of terrorism. The DOJ is basically giving up because they're tired of trying to fight Microsoft. What sort of precedent does this set for the Standard Oils of the new millenium?
This government has bowed to corporate interests at every turn. I'd be happy to see a list of cases where individual freedom was held in higher esteem than corporate interests. This is yet another side effect of the US's desire to remain an economic superpower. It has changed from a Representative Democracy to a colossal beauracratic corporation. Perhaps we should call it The United States of America Inc.?
Remember folks, a government that tramples the rights of the citizen is a tyrannical government. There is no leeway for arguement in that.
...another /.er's comment i once read:
The DOJ was supposed to come down on Microsoft, but they went down on them instead.
;o
Seriously, this does not suprise me at all, given the priorities of the current administration.
Face it, Microsoft is a major corporation and, yes, a considerable influence on our economy. No administration (that can actually get elected) is going to gleefully attack them, because they fear the economic effects (yes, I realize that any negative effect would likely be short-lived, and would be more than made up for by the subsequent explosion of new entrepreneurship, but many people don't see things this way).
GWB, "I prefer inovation over legislation."
It was all down hill after GW Bush started to use the term "inovation" when referring to Microsoft. The conspiracy theorist in me says that he was bought out. Maybe he slipped when he said it?
it won!
How we know is more important than what we know.
Campaign contributions from Microsoft to the republican party this last election cycle have amounted to over $680,000. (They've been generous with the democrats as well, totalling at over $450,000). Their total contributions, just over 1.1 million dollars, are ten times bigger than those from any other software vendor, and nearly half of all the contributions from software vendors combined.
Check my source here.
I don't think that there is a good solution to this problem, because for the most part, they seem to be attacking the wrong problem. For most of the trial it seemed that the DOJ and company were attacking the software end of MS, meaning the IE browser, the integrated-ness of the OS and such.
When they should have ignored that completly. They should have attacked their business policys because that's what the problem really is. The problem with MS is that they used their position to destroy all other oses. DR-DOS, IBM-DOS, OS/2, etc. all dissapeared because MS played dirty pool and wouldn't let computer manufactures sell PCs with those OSes without penalizing them for doing so.
It doesn't matter if IE can be removed or not, if MS wants to make it part of their product then so be it. If they want to integrate Office with their os then so be it. It's their product, if you don't like it, complain to MS or don't buy it.
I feel that linux is now a real alternative to windows on the x86 platform. And if you really don't think so, then go buy a Mac. They are also good machines.
I don't know how they can pay for the deaths of the other software they killed by being a monopoly. I don't think that this settlement is enough punishment, but that's a biased opinion.
But how can someone be a monopoly where there are multiple other options? Apple, Linux, etc?
This is a common misconception of anti-trust law (IANAL). Unlike what we were taught by Parker Brothers, a monopoly isn't defined as a 100% market-share. According to the way anti-trust law is applied, a monopoly exists when the average consumer believes there are no viable alternatives. In this particular case, MS has an OS monopoly because the cost of switching is prohibitively high for most end-users. Saying that you can give up most of your existing apps to switch to Linux, or ditch your hardware to switch to Apple is no answer for users.
When AT&T had a telephone monopoly, people still had the options of...
1) Moving to another country where AT&T wasn't a monopoly.
2) Buying all the land in between their own, and those people they wanted to call, for the purpose of building their own comm system.
3) Writing letters.
4) Doing without. It's not like telephones are a necessity.
So, I guess the courts were wrong back then, they obviously weren't a monopoly after all.
Besides, Linux wasn't an option when Microsoft committed their crimes. Microsoft had, and still continues to have, better than 85% of the marketshare, and is guilty of using it to try to kill both Apple and Linux, and for that matter, everything else which is even remotely a substitute. They're guilty of attempting to turn the internet into a big, sad AOL clone (.NET, IIS extensions that are incompatible with competing products, abuse of html standards) and for no other reason than this would give them more of an iron grip over how you use the net and your computer.
They are guilty, even legally guilty. They are a monopoly not only in the practical sense, but also as defined by law. The executives at M$ don't play fair, and worse, when they force their products onto everyone, those products aren't even half as good as the now dead competitor. So you tell me, how could you ever possibly defend them?
DOJ Lawyer, TK429 : Hey, you Microsoft, Let me take a look at your software!
Bill Glates : This is not the software you're looking for.
TK429 : Ok, this isn't the software we're looking for.
Gates (waving his hand) : We may procede.
TK429 : Ok, these guys look clean, move along.
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
Just a question.
:) ) The question i am asking is, technically, legally, is this a thing which is an *option*; asking "is there a law by which Sun or whoever can sue to have Bush appointees taken away from this case", not "if Sun sued under such a law, would they succeed". Is it possible under the laws of the U.S.. But respond how you will. Thanks..
It is my belief, and i know the belief of most of the people on slashdot, that the DOJ is currently neither acting in the best interests of the american people or acting to see the law of the united states of america upheld.
Whether from "contributions" or bribes, or from the simple republican belief that laws should keep quiet and go play alone in their room and leave the nice Important People alone when they're trying to make money (now run along now. shoo), the DOJ seems pretty clearly to me to be currently of the belief that microsoft is doing a good job and should be let loose from the responsibilities of the good of the american people or either the letter or intent of the antitrust laws. Put plainly, the executive branch is currently against the idea of antitrust regulation.
However, it is not the executive branches job to make the law. That is the job of the legislative branch. And the legislative branch has declared anticompetitive behavior to gain monopolistic control over a market harmful and illegal. And it is not the executive branches job to decide whether extant law is valid and worthy to be carried out. That is the job of the judicial branch. And the judicial branch seems in this case to want the law to be carried out.
But it is the executive branch that is currently trying to end this. So i ask: can they be removed from this? In any way? I know nothing of law-- this is why i am asking. Can citizen groups sue to state that the prosecution of this case should be taken out of the hands of the DOJ and into the hands of the EFF or some specially-appointed board? Can the judge appoint some kind of Special Master or Special Prosecutor or someone who will be picked to actually attempt to push for the most stringent judgement possible for microsoft? (REMEMBER, it is NOT the job of the prosecutor to decide what is just. It is the job of the prosecutor to argue for the strongest judgement possible, the job of the defendant to argue for the weakest judgement possible, and the JUDGE to ensure all arguments are reasonable and find the most just and legal balance behind all. The judge should be unbiased. The prosecution is not really intended to be someone unbiased against the defendant, so it doesn't matter if the prosecutor is someone picked by Sun or Oracle or whoever; whether biased or no, the prosecutor should *act* biased against the defendant, because that is their *job*.) Can we declare John Ashcroft tainted because he recieved campaign contributions from microsoft, and have him chineese-walled away from the case?
Don't police officers and judges and FBI agents and Attourneys General of the United States of America have to swear to protect the american people and uphold the law? If the people currently trying to short-circuit the case against microsoft make it clear they are against in this case the upholding of the law, are they violating those oaths? Can there be legal repercussions for them in doing that?
A quick note to those responding: I am not *particularly* trying to start a flamewar (flamewar bad. informative comments good. HULK SMASH) on whether the doj SHOULD be blocked out of the microsoft antitrust case. I am not 100% convinced it is the best thing (just mostly
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
For some reason people tend to ignore that the DOJ went to court with the wrong case. They became enamoured with the Netscape case and left out much better arguments for a monopoly case.
I really don't think MS was inherently wrong by tying the browser to the OS. Maybe it was bad engineering (crippling the OS on purpose), but having an integrated browser did benefit me as a consumer.
Konqueror, for example, benefited me more as a Linux user, because it is a better integrated browser. I would also prefer a lightweight, less-buggy, integrated browser in Windows, but I don't see releasing a crappy product as an anti-competitive maneuver.
Forcing the market to accept a crappy product AND REJECT competition is an obvious anti-competitive maneuver. There is no way MS could give that the "benefits the consumer" spin. The BeOS case was a much more obvious evidence of monopoly abuse than anything Netscape-related.
It's not clear it's monopoly abuse to alter your product to compete with other companies. It is monopoly power to force legislation (OEM contracts) and/or artificial technical constraints (false incompatibility error messages with other OSes) upon the market.
Declaring MS a monopoly for the wrong reasons just makes it less likely for it to ever receive the punishment appropiate for the "right reasons".
Freedom is the freedom to say 2+2=4, everything else follows...
The settlement can not have as its purpose "punishment" of Microsoft. The court documents are littered with precedents that companies found to have violated the relevant statutes (Sherman Act, Robinson-Patman Act, Clayton Act) cannot be per se punished for the violation. They can be required to "disgorge" (such an interesting word) the fruits of their acts, but the finding cannot be punitive. Even this doesn't really apply to Microsoft, because they were found to have gained their Windows monopoly legally (it's legal to have a monopoly, believe it or not) buy to have used illegal means to maintain that (desktop OS) monopoly. Unfortunately the argument about illegally tying IE was overturned by the Appeals Court.
Any future settlement of this case must focus, as a matter of law, on preventing Microsoft from continuing its illegal acts. This is why 99% of the Tunney act responses were more or less thrown out.
with a toothbrush...
There is a war going on for your mind.
Of course they don't. Here's how they define it:
linkWhat, praytell, would this "multimedia middleware" be? From all descriptions, it appears to be none other than Windows Media Player, or a subset thereof.
I tried every decent and legal way I could think of to resolve the issue w/the business before I rented the chicken suit
Republican Sen. John "20% of the Keating Five" McCain, and several of his cohorts in the Democratic Party
John apologized on national TV for his misjudgements in the S&L scandal. He also had little do to with leaning on any regulators to let the S&L's do as they wished.
Next JM is a Republican. I'm sure you are too, and find that JM's ability to do as he sees fit, rather than tow the party line annoys you.
I disagree with your view of campaign finance reform, but so be it. BUT when people think that spending unlimited amounts of money running adverts to elect our officials is a RIGHT OF FREE SPEECH, I just want to throw up. It's not!
A reasonable limitation, and clear lines of who the donors are, are reasonable restrictions.
Free speech advocates would be better served to find a reasonable limitation to campaign contributions, and defend that. Instead they defend the outrageous status quo, and have no meaningful reform that can or will pass.
Cheers!
Oops, you make the mistake of assuming the number of states and counties actually matters. See, here in America, each state gets one electoral vote for each member of Congress that state has. The nonsense you babble about "increasing voting power of smaller states" only works in the Senate, where each state is represented equally, and as such, balances the House, where the number of Congresscritters depends on the population of the state. But in the electoral college, high-population states like California (54 electoral votes? something like that...) routinely pound smaller states like Wyoming (with the federal minimum of 3 electoral votes) with the system that is in place. I recommend checking out the Electoral College FAQ by clicking on this link before posting nonsense about the Electoral College
You're just upset because your guy lost.
No, you only think that because you don't know what you're talking about. Too bad, really - since "your" guy won and you don't even know how. Funny and sad, all at the same time. *sigh*
But what does my opinion matter, I just vote here. It's not like I have any money or anything.