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25 More States Oppose MSFT Antitrust Dismissal
phebz23 writes "News.com is reporting that 25 more states (even Washington!) are rallying behind the previous 9 to prevent Judge Kollar-Kotelly from dismissing the case on the grounds that the states should not have say in antitrust policy which is opposite of Microsoft's motion. They cite the Clayton Act, which grants them the authority to continue the case." Important to note that the states say: "even when the federal government has proposed to settle a case. Congress has granted the states clear authority to proceed independently under Section 16, despite the fact that the federal government has chosen not to act, has proposed to settle a case, has in fact settled a case, or has taken the matter to trial."
... is futile.
When will the states learn they can't compete with MS?!?!
Heh, just kidding.
Seriously though, what is the impact of the States continuing the case if the Federal Government has already dismissed it?
Does it lessen the damage(s) or penalties that could have originally been levied on M$?
"PC Load Letter? What the $@#% does that mean?!"
This is important for the continuity of government and the law. Essentially the Department of Justice did a complete about face after the Bush administration came into office. (Microsoft gave more money to government and incumbents than did Enron by the way including our Federal Attourney General who while recusing himself from Enron case did not apparently see any conflict of interest in the Microsoft case).
If the states did not have this kind of legal standing, cases that stretched over administrations could side-step the law entirely.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
It's true that this antitrust trial is dragging on and on, but I feel it is good for the general public.
Face it, a LOT of the public doesn't really care or understand the ins and outs of this trial. The more states that stand up for their rights, the more the public gets to learn about Microsoft's blatant misuse of their monopoly. It does drag on and on, but it degrades Microsoft's public image by constantly being in court for stuff they KNOW is against the law.
So, will they do just what they did with big tobacco? Implement a government settlement whereby MS will be required to raise the price of their product over the next few years to pay off the settlement while never calling it a "tax"?
If anything the tobacco cases show that the government would be better suited to tax using a tax and not a settlement.
Wish I hadn't used up all my mod points. This is a good point. The issue here is not whether the states necessarily agree or disagree with the settlement, what they are doing is protecting their right to deal with the issue themselves. This should go to the Supreme Court. It will be interesting to see how a Republican Supreme Court deals with the issue. Traditionally, Republicans claim to be in favor of states rights over federal rights but this case pits big business and deregulation against that. We'll see what happens.
Republican or not, the current Supreme Court has not been a lapdog for special interests. Since they never need to run a reelection campaign, they're also pretty hard to buy off. Regardless, though, they can have it both ways, if they are so inclined. The issue that will come before them is whether or not the states have jurisdiction in the case, not whether the case itself has merit.
"If English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for everyone else."
"This should go to the Supreme Court. "
Why? There is no real issue; the states have a right to proceed as written in statute.
I think the underlying point here is that MS's motion is patently absurd, and they know it. My guess is the are doing it to delay as long as they can because CKK isn't turning out to be the pushover they expected, and they see the end coming.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
Well, at least a thoughtful reply.
The point is to restore competition. Microsoft was able to destroy the market for OS products years by forging exclusive OEM distribution agreements that incorporated a little trick called cliff pricing. This was ruled illegal in the first antitrust case years ago.
By prohibiting MS from selling to OEMs, the marketplace of operating systems is restored. Customers can buy what they want be it Windows or whatever. I suspect (contrary to your assertion) that what would emerge would be a number of Windows compatible operating systems to leverage the huge windows compatible applications base.
The second part of the monopoly is in office suites. This came from Microsoft's ability to take advantage of their control of the platform. Opening the file formats just allows other products to interoperate on a level playing field.
I don't see that this proposed remedy is exessively punitive, it merely restores the marketplace to a state that existed before the illegal behavior. In many ways I feel it is similar to the breakup of the telephone monopoly. True, people would be inconvienced with the burden of choice.
Howard Roark, Architect
I believe in a Man's right to exist for his own sake.
Governments have a DUTY not to allow themselves to be manipulated.
I notice that it takes a long time for abuses to be recognized, and to be stopped. Societies do not have efficient means for stopping a determined abuser, particularly one that exploits the lack of technical knowledge of its customers.
Meanwhile, Microsoft has been continuing exactly as it did before, testing the limits. Perhaps there should be several new anti-trust and abuse-of-commerce cases.
With Windows XP, Microsoft seems to be trying to blur the distinction between its computers and its customer's computers. Windows XP sometimes resembles a trojan (except that you must pay for it). Numerous operating system programs call Bill:
- Microsoft Media Player (tells Bill the music you like)
- Microsoft Direct Play Voice Test
- Microsoft Help and Support Center
- Microsoft Help Center Hosting Server
- Microsoft Application Error Reporting
- Microsoft Management Console
- Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service
- MS DTC Console program
- Services and Controller app
- Run DLL as an app
- Windows Explorer
- Microsoft Office keeps a number in each file you create that identifies
your computer. No one has said why.
- Microsoft porn search looks on your hard drive for those photos of your
wife. Okay, maybe not, but you aren't sure are you?
- These are just the ones I know about. There may be others.
It is such a relief to use Linux! With Linux, there may be problems, but I know that they aren't caused deliberately. Linux is an OS that does not involve me in adversarial behavior.Bush's education improvements were
An AC wrote:
> Can't we end this now. Hasn't Mr. Gates suffered enough already?
Microsoft was found to have broken the law. We are now in the penalty phase of the trial. There is no longer any question as to how guilty MS is, only how much they will pay for breaking the law.
Problem is, we can't get Microsoft and their lawyers (both those who are employees of Microsoft and those who supposedly work for the Department of Justice) to clam up and get penalized already. It would really help if the so called "Department of Justice" would quit defending Microsoft and start prosecuting them like they are supposed to be doing. Then we wouldn't have a settlement that MS is using to repeat their illegal activities, and 9 states off on their own because they seem to be the only ones who care about doing their job.
The 25 states will help here, even if they don't formally join in with the nine states. State governments are important, and they have rights, even in this "War on Terror" era. It's high time they stood up and let people know that.
.Net, DRMOS, using the Settlement like a rolled up newspaper to smack their OEMs around... It is plainly clear that Microsoft has not suffered enough, because it obviously has no intention of mending its ways. Until justice is done, until Microsoft mends its ways, until huge corporations respect the law of the land, this isn't over. We have a choice. Either the computer industry becomes vibrant, prosperous, innovative, and free (as in liberty), or we have the Microsoft Millenium. Choose!
"The path of peace is yours to discover for eternity."
"Mosura", 1961
Cars are not a good analogy.
People install operating systems all the time. This very minute, Wal-Mart will sell you any of 9 models of PC without an OS. Replacement hard drives come blank and, "re-install Windows" is probably the most commonly spoken phrase in tech support today.
Howard Roark, Architect
I believe in a Man's right to exist for his own sake.
And just how the hell do you know where the bar would be if MS hadn't killed off all the competition? You from some alternate universe or something?
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
Regardless of what propganda they spread, we all know how Bush feels about "States Rights". He wasted no time bypassing the Florida state rights and going to the federal courts to stop counting the votes because it would have cause harm to his image ---well gosh, his image may have been tarnished! --- thinking back now and seeing how a year of bush has been we should be asking what harm was caused to America by not counting the all votes. OH wait, that's right, we are NOT allowed to question that, we can only wave our flags and be happy.
>>>please remove "nospam" from email address