Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Microsoft-Antitrust.gov Opens for Public

Posted by michael on from the for-all-your-antitrust-needs dept.

prostoalex writes "The Attorney General of the State of California has opened up a Web site, dedicated to Microsoft antitrust violations. In 2002 Microsoft received 2 court judgements, one from California and 7 other states, another one from New York and nine other states. If you believe the company has violated the conditions stipulated in either of the statements, visit Microsoft-Antitrust.gov Web site. Notice that the site collects only the complaints related to two final judgements mentioned above."

15 of 245 comments (clear)

  1. Oh the irony. by BWJones · · Score: 4, Interesting


    Well, looking at the site.....it appears it's running on.....wait for it......Windows 2000! Yeaaaaay. Oh, wait......

    Seriously though, what does that say about your position when you are adopting and running the product of which you are complaining about? Although, I suppose that might only back up their case.

    --
    Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
    1. Re:Oh the irony. by qoncept · · Score: 4, Interesting

      So you're saying they chose which product to use based on the product rather than the morals of the company behind it? So that's why slashdotters make so many bad decisions..

      --
      Whale
    2. Re:Oh the irony. by C10H14N2 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Yes, national socialism would have a hard time gathering votes on here despite all the great economic advantages and shiny, shiny boots of leather.

      Sometimes good decisions are based on more than expediency, like attempting to not support totalitarian regimes whether governmental or commercial, which exist only by consent.

      I would rather the trains ran a little late even if Microsoft could make them run on-time.

  2. I wonder... by delirium28 · · Score: 5, Interesting
    how long it will take before the site experiences a Slashdot effect.

    Seriously though, this is all well and good, but what's to stop users from logging onto the site and reporting violations out of spite? Do they really expect people to believe that they will examine every alleged violation, or is this simply a way for the government to pacify those that believe the judgement was too lienient?

    --
    Who is John Galt?
  3. Payment by rf0 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Well going from the Yahoo news article Microsoft has ended up paying to investigate itself :)

    "...and paid for with funds Microsoft provided to enforce a judgment ..."

    Rus

    --
    Cheap UK and US VPS
  4. Re:They can't hate bill that much. by ninthwave · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Does anyone in the OSS community in CA want to give them a hand and some space on something non bill to do this?????? Maybe that department did not have the knowledge to use a different platform or the ability to get access to one. I think before slating them someone should offer them some help. I would but am 8k miles away right now.

    Netcraft results of the same information:

    The site www.microsoft-antitrust.gov is running Microsoft-IIS/5.0 on Windows 2000.

    We have no uptime data for www.microsoft-antitrust.gov at present, and cannot plot a graph.

    The host www.microsoft-antitrust.gov has been added to the list of sites that we may monitor. We will start monitoring www.microsoft-antitrust.gov in the next daily monitoring cycle.

    We will continue to monitor this host for a few days, to get enough values to plot a graph. After this time the host will not be monitored again unless it's requested again, or it is one of the most frequently requested hosts.

    OS, Web Server and Hosting History for www.microsoft-antitrust.gov
    OS Server Last changed IP address Netblock Owner
    Windows 2000 Microsoft-IIS/5.0 12-Sep-2003 167.10.5.164 California Department of Justice

    --
    I was thinking of the immortal words of Socrates, who said: "I drank what?" - Chris Knight (Val Kilmer)- Real Genius
  5. I wonder by fireboy1919 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Microsoft is ordered to allow interoperability.

    Does this mean that they have to provide their Driver Development Kit, without which it is nearly impossible to write drivers for Windows, for free?

    --
    Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
    1. Re:I wonder by stephenry · · Score: 3, Interesting

      "Microsoft is ordered to allow interoperability."

      They can't be doing a very good job since Microsoft has just decided to block all non-MS clients to their MSN network. To me, that classifies as interoperability.

      Besides, how can these judgements be even considered fitting when MS can simply purchase companies that offer non-strategically compatible protocols (a la the recent purchase of an Anti-virus company that developed software for Linux)

  6. Complaint form's final (upload) field... by rklrkl · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Yes, not only is the site running IIS on W2K, but the final (upload) field on the complaint form is most amusing.

    Whilst the prior three fields give you 8K of plain text which to fill in, the final field only lets you upload in one of two proprietary closed-source word processor document formats (one of which is ironically Microsoft's) - nope, you're not allowed to upload SXW format (Open Office), plain text or even PDF files ! Also note that you're allowed a 1000K upload too, thanks to the bloatedness of the two formats they do allow...

  7. MSN/Windows Messenger by R0 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Is preinstalling MSN/Windows Messenger in windows illegal? And is it relevent to the judgements?

  8. Microsoft don't eat their own dog food. by pubjames · · Score: 3, Interesting


    I just found this very entertaining table on Netcraft:

    http://www.atrc.net.pk/news/microsoft_london_lin ux _hosted.html

    It shows that Microsoft use Linux to deliver their web site content to Europe.

    If there was ever a good way to convince your PHB that Linux is a capable system, this must be it. Email that link to your PHB today!

  9. Left them a comment... by rongage · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If you go to http://www.microsoft-antitrust.gov/contactus.asp you will find that they have a nice little web form for commentary to them.

    For example, my comment to them...

    It's pretty darned ironic that your department has chosen to host a website on Microsoft Windows 2000 and Internet Information Services. Was this a deliberate choice on your part to help demonstrate the monopoly power of Microsoft, or did you genuinely no know that you had several no-cost (acquisition wise) choices available to you?
    --
    Ron Gage - Westland, MI
  10. End of life issues by jwjcmw · · Score: 4, Interesting
    My company develops windows applications, and one thing we are running into is the end of life issues.

    Right now NT4 has reached the end of its support, and will be end-of-life next June. There are still many corporate environments where NT4 is the norm, and many of them aren't going to be changing anytime soon. This makes it hard for a developer who wants to create a product that works on NT4 through XP, as there is little or no support for adding or changing the NT4 platform at MS. However, it is not a problem for MS, since if they have any problems with an application (Word, Excel, IE, etc) not working on NT4, they have the ability to ship a change to the operating system with the update to the application(probably even after the "end-of-life"). This makes it hard for developers who have to say, yes you can use our product, but you have to upgrade to a later version of Windows, where MS can just say go ahead and buy this product now...you can upgrade the operating system when you are ready. This drives more of the application use on these older systems to only using MS products.

    I wonder if that aspect has ever been discussed in any of the anti-trust proceedings.

  11. PCs-Windows? by Jedi1USA · · Score: 2, Interesting

    So is this where I go to complain if a computer manufacturer refuses to sell me a computer without MS Windows installed, or no discount on same computer without Windows? How about enforcing refunds if the terms of the EULA are not acceptable?

    Just a few thoughts.

    --
    My old sig was REALLY stoopid.
  12. Re:redundant??! by Tony-A · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Isn't slashdot already the place for Microsoft hating and bashing?
    Slashdot is the place to keep up with the latest in Microsoft wormage. (At least that's what I tell management;)
    Slashdot seems to be the only source for unbiased technical information about Microsoft products. (I didn't say /. was unbiased. It's the only place you're likely to find any unbiased information.)