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Massachusetts Probing Microsoft Settlement Gripes
tassii writes "In this article from Reuters, Massachusetts' DA's office told the judge in the Microsoft Anti-trust trial that it was looking into Microsoft settlement complaints. Among complaints being examined by Massachusetts was whether Microsoft had violated portions of the settlement prohibiting pacts requiring exclusive support of Microsoft software. Massachusetts was also examining whether the company had properly offered communications protocols allowing non-Microsoft software to work well with Windows." An Associated Press article covers the same story; the non-Microsoft software mentioned in both stories is Linux, but it's not clear which company's promotion of Linux is drawing the attention.
Does it really surprise anyone anymore if Microsoft is breaking the law. I mean, obviously the /. population thinks MS sucks, but It always seems as though MS just says it will do things to get the government off their backs, and then not do them. I'm dissapointed, but not surprised by this development.
"Armed forces abroad are of little value unless there is prudent counsel at home" - Cicero
I'm really glad they're following up on this. The penalties were hardly enough to break up a monopoly, and Microsoft gave many indications that they would pretty much ignore the whole thing.
Microsoft bought VirtualPC. They announced that the Mac version of IE would be discontinued. They've continued to offer special deals to sell Windows at little or no profit to (try to) keep Linux out of government and business.
The monopoly power Microsoft was convicted of abusing is still being used, and they are doing everything in their power to expand it.
If I recall correctly, problem was when the first judge talked out of turn to the press, the government felt they had to ease up on the restrictions so people wouldn't feel that they were being too hard on Microsoft.
In retrospect, no one seems to care what happens to corporate criminals (excluding Martha Stewart, but that's just because she, as Lewis Black said "made us feel bad about using parsley as a garnish").
I used to think that breaking MS up would have been a bad idea... now I'm wondering if it was the only feasible situation.
I'm a lawyer, but not yours. I wouldn't represent someone who thinks taking legal advice from Slashdot is a good idea.
We all knew this would happen. The only question was when and if anybody noticed. Unfortunately, one of MS defences has always been ignorance. They can claim that they are so big that they don't know sometimes what each section of the company is doing. Take for example the iLoo fiasco. Cynics like me think that the negative public reaction forced them to retract their statements. Billy G has always had a firm grasp of his company. Even though publicly he isn't running the company, as the major stockholder, he would be stupid not to be in charge. MS is still doing business as usual, now they are not so blatant about it.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
It is not illegal to have a monopoly, and the penalties are not designed to break up the monopoly. The court already decided NOT to break up Microsoft.
What exactly has socialism got to do with it? No, please humour me I'm a fucktard, I dont understand how a corrupt manipulative corporation benifits mankind.
Instead of having a monetary settlement where every person get a few dollars/money from Microsoft (where only the class action lawyers get the money) it would be better if a revisited settlement included a payment, from Microsoft's 46 Billion dollars in cash (that billy G etc has on hand right now) a payment to be made to a trust fund controlled by Open Source Leaders (Linus, for example)
I'm not trolling, this is a legitimate question that will crop up if such an approach were to be seriously considered. Namely, why does open source deserve that "payment" any more than anyone else that competes with Microsoft? For example, Netscape's downfall can be at least partially attributed to Microsoft's various anti-competitive practices, so aren't they just as deserving of compensation? Just food for thought.
"Wow, you're like some kind of superhero able to ward off happiness and success at every turn."
-- Ryan Stiles
> If I recall correctly, problem was when the first judge talked out of turn to the press, the government felt they had to ease up on the restrictions so people wouldn't feel that they were being too hard on Microsoft.
No, you're rolling two distinct events into one.
1) The judge did talk to the press in circumstances not generally deemed appropriate, but all that did was give legs to the appeal. The end result was that a higher court appointed another judge to give a second opinion on the penalty. IIRC the higher court didn't actually find fault with any of the lower court's decisions; they just didn't think the necessary proprieties had been observed. So they sent it back for a "clean room" second round in a different judge's court. There was absolutely nothing in the higher court's ruling that would have kept that second judge from "forking" Microsoft.
2) The second event was that by the time things got to the second judge's court there had been a regime change in the USA and the new regime's DoJ threw over the case and offered a handslap settlement to Microsoft, even though the Findings of Fact would have almost certainly let them get a hardball settlement if that had fit in with their new bosses' ideology. The new judge didn't see anything wrong with the proposed settlement and ignored the critics who pointed out the inevitable outcome...
Massachusets, IIRC, was the only state that didn't cave in somewhere along the way. Some never signed on; some did but then withdrew before it ever got to court (e.g. Texas, purportedly at the influence of Michael Dell); most of those left at the end of the trial signed off on the wrist slap.
All this from memory... I'm sure someone will correct me wherever I'm wrong.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
In November 2002, following an appeal and several court hearings, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia issued a judgment in the Massachusetts case prohibiting Microsoft from continuing certain unlawful conduct.
Talk about a meaningless injunction. "You broke the law! Now we have to pass another law saying you can't break the law!" Uhh.. yeah. Sure.
That Jesus Christ guy is getting some terrible lag... it took him 3 days to respawn! -NJ CoolBreeze