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Microsoft Lawyer To Lead ABA's Antitrust Section
Dan writes "Wired is reporting that a top lawyer from Microsoft will take over later this year as chairman of the American Bar Association's antitrust section. The panel is organizing opposition to a congressional plan that would require more aggressive oversight by the courts of such antitrust settlements. Considering the next major ruling in MS's case is due soon, you can figure out how important this is to MS."
Why does Microsoft have so many anti-trust concerns? I mean, is there anybody left who still actually trusts Microsoft?
It only matters who is intepreting it and who is enforcing it. This is a lesson Microsoft has learned well.
And when I read the article... I had a nice big MSN butterly ad breaking it up. Does Microsoft have it's finger into everything?
Conflict of Interest?
Seriously, it's like hiring Janet Jackson to chair a senate subcommittee on decency in public broadcasting!
Even Microsoft would be in trouble if it was suddenly cut off from 300+ million potential customers.
Bush: He's Liberal in all the wrong ways.
Well, I would really like to give the profession more credit than this, but does not anyone see a conflict of interest here? The standard should be "avoiding even the appearance of impropriety", so how is it that the entire American Bar Association think this is a good idea? Are they that owned?
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
Josef Mengele will be taking over as the new Director of the American Red Cross.
Bush and Blair were nominated for the nobel peace award.
Mr. Fox, would you be so kind as to go to that henhouse and guard those chickens? Thank you, that is all. ;)
libertarianswag.com
I heard this story before- wasn't it called Little Red Riding Hood?
I somehow doubt he's still on MS's payroll anymore. Maybe the fact that he's been defending Microsoft will give him good insight into just how they've handled things (well or poorly). And wouldn't a lawyer with a lot of antitrust expereince make the ideal candidate for this position? After all, there are more cases out there than Microsoft. (Not to mention, are there any antitrust lawyers out there who, at one point, *didn't* work for MS? ;)
Moderation: Put your hand inside the puppet head!
Put Janet in charge of the Federal Department of Boobs. Then, next time a failed former boyband star de-bra's her, she can say it is a public service announcement.
Yes, he is too liberal. He caved in to Ted Kennedy and did not insist on vouchers (which are an effective way of improving and expanding public education). He also wants to pass an immigrant amnesty bill which would reward criminal trespassers for their crimes.
The Democrats reduced his tax cuts to the point where they have not been that effective in improving the economy. Bush was too liberal in that he refused to veto these greedy budgets with their overhigh taxes.
Microsoft lobbies to avoid penalties under the law, to reduce governmental oversight of itself, and to reduce enforcement of judgements already handed down.
Duh.
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
Wired is reporting that a top lawyer from Microsoft will take over later this year as chairman of the American Bar Association's antitrust section
Does anyone know to whom we can appeal/complain at the ABA or elsewhere in the government about this potential conflict of interest? You know, and have the complaining/appealing be actually useful? If so, please post...
How appropriate. They've ended up putting a rabbit in charge of guarding the carrot patch...
---
"Every jumbled pile of person has a thinking part that wonders what the part that isn't thinking isn't thinking of"-TMBG
Oh dear...
Wouldn't that have a SLIGHT confict of interest?
I mean, seriously, a former lawyer for the biggest monopoly in the world - heading BA's anti-trust dept.? That's insanity.
Hey, while we're at it - let's put Micheal Jackson as the head of the Child Protection Agency... WTF.
Isn't that a pretty huge conflict of interest? I honestly don't understand how someone from such a large corporation whose name is synonymous with monopoly can get one of its cronies into a position of authority at an unbiased organization.
Does this strike a bad nerve with anyone else?
There is no conflict of interest. The ABA is a private professional organization. It is not a branch of the government.
Don't bother complaining to the ABA. It's leaders typically have been practicing attorneys at some time in their career.
The current president, Dennis Archer, was the mayor of Detroit. Is it a "conflict of interest" and he must be removed because.... shocking news..... there are legal issues in Detroit? Shocking! Fire him!
The courses of action defined in my sig used on emails is getting closer and closer to the last option I fear. I mean, just how much longer is the american public actually going to tolerate what nearly 100% of us see as justice for sale to the highest bidder?
:
As Harry Truman once said about the buck stopping here, there will come a point when enough of us have had enough, and the passing of the buck will come to a screeching halt, with much of our constitution restored to its original meaning.
My sig?
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap,
ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
While we are at it, we can put Al Gore in charge of the Federal election commission (you know, the guy who lost an election and then lied in court to get the ballots tampered with). Or Bush in charge of military intelligence. Or Clinton in charge of making sure the Oval Office carpet stays stain-free.
IS the position meant to be filled by someone who works against monopolies, or is it more of an advisory/educational position, where it requires someone who knows a lot about anti trust and their opinion of antitrust laws isn't an issue?
Actually, it's nothing like that.
This guy is on a panel being organized in OPPOSITION to a congressional plan that would require more aggressive oversight by the courts of anti-trust settlements.
This isn't like hiring Janet Jackson to chair a senate subcommittee on decency in public broadcasting. This is like NAMBLA hiring a pedophile to help promote its causes. The complete opposite of what you're suggesting.
please see the above topic :-D
What's next? Halliburton execs to be put on a board that decides which companies should be getting contracts to help rebuild countries?
*sigh*
I mean, this guy is a lawyer. He doesn't have loyalties! Or ideals! Or morals! Or a soul.
So he worked for Microsoft. Because they gave him money. That, really, doesn't mean much about his own ideas. Lawyers are paid to put aside their own ideas, and sometimes even the truth, in order to make their own point.
According to this AP item in USA Today, the ABA has already been opposing increased oversight of antitrust settlements by the courts. The appointment of a Microsoft lawyer as Chair of the Antitrust Section may not be so much a matter of the fox guarding the chicken coop as the recruitment of an experienced and committed anti-anti-trust lawyer to help the ABA pursue its agenda. It would be interesting to know whether the ABA is actually soft on anti-trust enforcement or whether it perhaps regards judicial oversight as improper interference with the relationship between the two parties.
~~~
Give the ABA feedback, slashdot style: http://www.abanet.org/scripts/contactmail.jsp?to=q uestions
Libya has been tying to back down for over twenty years, it just hasn't suited the west until now.
If anybody is more qualified than Microsoft in Antitrust matters, I'm sure Mr. Gates is on his way to that person's home to try and recruit them. Blantently_obvious();
Learn something new.
How is this troll? Especially as the child of this--"Die you fucking scumbag"--isn't (yet)? I agree very little with the above post, but it isn't a troll. Off topic, probably. Flamebait, *maybe*. Troll, no.
In other news, MSNBC is reporting that the American Bar Association's Hen House will now be run by I. M. Foxxe.
=-+
My best friend is a "socialist". I used to think he was an idiot. Politically anyway.
Now I think he may be right.
--ken
Bitcoin pyramid: Join here: http://www.bitcoinpyramid.com/r/1427 it's FREE!
While I agree that there are WAY too many frivolous lawsuits nowadays, it's irritating that people always refer to the McD lawsuit as one.
Have you investigated the case at all? 7 days in the hospital and numerous skin grafts. The $480,000 she got (not millions) probably barely covered her injuries, with the cost of medical care nowadays. A recent trip to the emergency room for a small cut that took 30 seconds to glue shut (after a 4 hour wait) came back as a $1,500 bill before my insurance.
More than 700 people had been previously scalded, but McDonalds knowingly kept their coffee at 185 degrees with no warning signs at all that it was abnormally hot. I've even heard they did it purposely to cut down on free refills, because people had to wait longer for it to cool - but that's not a fact to my knowledge.
http://lawandhelp.com/q298-2.htm
Or to put it another way, if you worked at one time for Sun's Java division, should you be forbidden to work for ISO?
Not everything is an evil conspiracy.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
People are not reading the article. The group the lawyer is in charge of is a lobbying group, not one that will be making any of the decisions.
He sure got experience.
Nowadays, we would outsource to Mr. Fox to guard the hen house.
In all fairness, all to many people believe in an unworkable system called copyrights that suggests that people have some kind of moral right to restrict what other people copy. Then Microsoft abuses this system to become corrupt and powerfull. Then all of a sudden these same people get in a huff that Microsoft is unjust and monopolistic. Well WTF, why don't we just admit that copyrights are garbage and try to rid ourselves of them, and stop spewing out old worn and unproven propaganda on faith that copyrights actually help creative people more than they harm them.
With all of the bickering and complaining, you think they would have RTFA, and it's entirty. Even if the lawyer thing is controveral, there is no reason to start MS bashing. What about the entire section of the article about MS beginning to fight back against SPAM?
--- taken from the bottom of topic posted article ---
Pay-per-spam: Microsoft, which has declared war on spam and those responsible for floods of unsolicited electronic mail, is aiming to raise the cost of spam for spammers with a new technology targeting the low barrier to sending mass messages.
Currently, it costs virtually the same amount to send one message as it does one million. In a research project called "Penny Black," the world's largest software maker is looking at ways to make it difficult for spammers to spread offers for get-rich-quick schemes, porn and penis enlargement products.
Under Microsoft's system, an e-mail sender's computer would be required to spend about 10 seconds solving a complex math problem and attaching proof of the effort to a message. For most users sending anywhere from a few to several dozen e-mails daily, that doesn't amount to too much computation time. Spammers who send millions of messages, however, would have to buy racks of computers.
Does this strike anyone else as the fox guarding the henhouse?
In walking, just walk. In sitting, just sit. Above all, don't wobble.
-- Yun-Men
There is no conflict of interest.
Of course there is.
The ABA is a private professional organization. It is not a branch of the government.
Which has exactly what to do with whether there is a conflict of interest or not?
It's leaders typically have been practicing attorneys at some time in their career.
Which has (again) exactly NOTHING to do with anything.
It's not a conflict of interest because they're laywers, this is a pretty clear conflict of interest because he's in charge of the antitrust portion, and because he has spent his career attempting to get his employer cleared of antitrust charges, and because the ABA spends it's time lobbying the government.
Moron.
This is clearly illegal. Microsoft is using their monopoly power in crooked business to gain a foothold in the lucrative crooked politics arena.
This portrays in a nutshell what is wrong with the Corporate States of America. The foxes are always put in charge of guarding the henhouses.
The Founding Fathers would be appalled at the state of the Union today.
Wow. The logic in your post is so twisted that I'm not even sure where to begin.
Should Hitler get the same prize for unifying countries and eliminating tension-causing influence (i.e. Jews?)
May we never see th
I meant mod up the AC post above mine, not me. Whatever. (Posting anon but the parent is me.)
Try reading the whole AP article on which it's based.
The chair of an ABA section isn't all that powerful -- that is, she can't decide ABA "policy" on anything. ABA policies and recommendations are committee-driven things, and the Antitrust section is especially highly organized; there are many subcommittees based on subject, and each subcommittee has a chair (or two). Becoming the chair of an ABA section is really 1) a prestige thing, meaning that the chair is widely respected as a top-flight attorney or legal mind in the area the section covers, and 2) an organizational thing.
The ABA sections have varying levels of influence in legislation; arguably, the antitrust section is quite influential. But there are many reasons that Microsoft will really have no sway, either at the ABA level or the legislation level.
In any case, a conflict of interest MIGHT occur if the ABA were supposed to decide something important or instrumental to the Microsoft antitrust cases. But the ABA most certainly isn't, because that's not the ABA's job.
> Bush and Blair should be nominated. They ended Saddam's war against Iraq, Kuwait, and other countries which has killed over 500,000 people.
Many more, I think. Estimated 900,000 for the Iran-Iraq war, plus 300,000 Iraqi Shiites after the first Gulf War inspired them to rebel, plus many others in smaller increments.
> Iraq is now a free country, and has hope
Unfortunately, the proverbial fat lady hasn't sung yet. Other proverbs:
"You can have any kind of government you like, so long as it's the kind we want and makes the decisions we want it to."
"The arrests will continue until our welcome improves."
What is Iraq going to be like 2, 5, 10, or 20 years from now?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Capitalism isn't necessesarily bad.
Greed is. So is corruption.
To Capitalism's credit, it has legitimately produced very many households having a modest amount of wealth. But who of the super-rich gained his or her wealth by legitimate means?
I think you'll find that a system or ideology does not make a civilization -- the people do.
log in when posting intelligent things please
Apparently it doesn't produce people who can spell, either.
This appointment doesn't have any real significance. The ABA is not a government agency; it's a private lawyer's organization that is voluntary (lots and lots of lawyers don't belong).
The ABA has a lot of different subgroups, on anti-trust, patent law, corporate law, etc. They do training on their areas of specialty, have meetings to talk about their area of interest, and do sometimes lobby about pending legislation.
The ABA Antitrust section has been pro-business, anti-enforcement forever, so this is really no big deal.
The UN's International Atomic Energy Agency would like you to be it's chairman.
Don't blame this on capitalism. The ABA is about as anti-capitalism as you can get.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Shows how worthless that award really is.
to find an anti-trust lawyer who hasn't worked for or against Microsoft these days, wouldn't it?
Have you investigated the case at all?
Yes. The coffee was quite safe. They sold billions of cups. They even sold it to the same lady several times. You only get problems if you do something dumb with it. Like pour it into your crotch.
The McDonald's case is an example of an egregeious, idiotic frivilous lawsuit.
The $480,000 she got
That was $480,000 too much. This suit is a textbook example of something that is entirely frivolous. She did this herself. No one else did, so no-one should have to pay.
A recent trip to the emergency room for a small cut that took 30 seconds to glue shut (after a 4 hour wait) came back as a $1,500 bill before my insurance.
You didn't earn the lesson from this suit. You should have filed a frivolous lawsuit with the company that sold you that knife, or whatever it is you cut yourself with it! Get rich!
More than 700 people had been previously scalded, but McDonalds knowingly kept their coffee at 185 degrees with no warning signs at all that it was abnormally hot
No, it was only 700. The coffee was at that temperature since it is the recommended optimum serving temperature. The fact that the 700 is out of billions of cups sold shows that it was quite safe. And yes, they did label it as hot coffee.
I've even heard they did it purposely to cut down on free refills
No, they did it because people preferred the coffee that way. Complaints of cold coffee greatly increased after the frivolous suit forced them to no longer sell the coffee their customers wanted.
http://lawandhelp.com
I'm familiar with them. They specialize in frivolous lawsuits. "Is that an ambulance I hear? Gotta run!"
Libya had not been trying to back down. Look, only recently did they stop lying about the Lockerbie thing. And that was a fairly simple matter.
Agreed, it is unpatriotic to think that lobby groups are the ones in Washington making the decisions.
See above.
Hank Asher then creates the MATRIX as a state level network version of the TIA office. Essentially continuing the TIA office, but freeing it from congressional oversight and federal whistleblower protections. He admits smuggling millions of dollars worth of cocaine in 1981 and 1982. Coincidentally at the time when the Iran-Contra dealings were in full swing.
s .h tm
But this is only speculation. Could there be more of a link between illegal dealings between Hank Asher and the republican party? OF COURSE THERE IS!
In 1992, Asher founded Database Technologies, which later merged with ChoicePoint. In 1999, he founded Seisint Inc. by merging two companies. He is still on Seisint's board of directors, and continues to play an active role in the company.During the 2000 presidential election ChoicePoint, gave Florida officials a list with the names of 8,000 ex-felons to "scrub" from their list of voters. But it turns out none on the list were guilty of felonies, only misdemeanors.
So there we have it. We went from having a domestic spying agency run by a five time felon to having the same domestic spying program sans congressional oversight and whistle blower protections run by a convicted drug smuggler who has proven that he'll break the law to further the republican agenda.
http://www.oldamericancentury.org/oh_republican
So ABBA has their own anti-trust lawyers?
Must be Money-Money-Money.
Damn you for stealing my joke. Knowing me, knowing you... one of us was bound to do it. It's the name of the game.
My blog can kick your blog's ass
The fox was nominated to the board that oversees the henhouse.
Isn't that a bit like putting the wolves in charge of the sheep?
There are two ways to prevent corruption, abolute power and limited power. Absolute power prevents corruption, because if you try to bribe the dictator, he can have you killed and all your stuff taken instead of giving you what you want. Limited power works because the company gains no benefit in bribing a politician who does not have the power to benefit them. Of course absolute power is even less desirable, so the solution to this problem is to prevent the legislators from making regulations or otherwise interfering with the capitalistic free-market economy. What we need is true capitalism rather than this pseudo-capitalist B$.
"We have got to make Stan understand the importance of voting, because he'll definitely vote for our guy." - South Park
This is like having Saddam Hussein chair an Iraqi human rights committee.
Just so you know, the ABA has no authority over lawyers at all. It is not an official regulatory or licensing body for the practice of law. The only authority controlling the practice of law are the supreme courts of each state (for the practice of law in all of that state's courts), the chief judge of each individual U.S. District Court (for the pratice of law in that federal district court), the chief justice of each circuit of the U.S. Courts of Appeals (for the practice of law before that appellate court), and the Supreme Court of the United States of America (for practicing before the Supreme Court). Any other organization other then the courts listed above have no control over any lawyer in the United States. The worse they could do is kick a member out of their organization.
Lobbyists pay the money. Politicians need the money to buy ads to get elected. The aliterate electorate then votes for these corrupt bozos. So lobbyists do make the decisions.
( aliterate is a word! )
Religion is the main cause of atheism.
When I first read that, I thought ABBA was making a comeback.
How sad that such a forum is embarassed by the same idiotic comparisons as you'd hear on your local yokel radio station:
"It's like Janet Jackson being appointed style coach to Nickelodean!" (yuk yuk)
"It's like Michael Jackson's sister Janet Jackson being appointed censor to a live Belize Dance edition of E Travel Super Party!"
Seriously, how idiotic can you nerds get?
nerds. How many lame assed versions of "it's like the fox guarding the henhouse" jokes can you POSSIBLY make, you filthy simpleton nerds?
'Guilds' such as the ABA are in a way monopolies, it's true. On the other hand: can you think of an easier way than membership of a 'guild' with certain 'quality requirements' to guarantee that a person you wish to hire actually has some qualification for the task at hand?!? Law nowadays is a vastly larger and more complex field than it was 100 years ago. Some 100-200 years ago barbers could function as surgeons. I don't think they needed any formal education for that. Would you have a barber operate on you today?
And before we all get too excited: there is precious little analogy with Microsoft's monopoly in this. ABA admits anyone who passes its requirement for membership. These members then compete against each other. In other words: no monopoly. Microsoft doesn't license its products to anyone (afaik) and it is therefore virtually without competitors, i.e. a monopoly. Spot the difference.
Incidentally, it is not necessarily bad to have a ubiquitous operating system, be it Windows or not. Remember the bad old days when demo disks of games (or for that matter, any other software) were distributed because there was simply no way you could tell whether they could be installed/played on your computer?! The downside of Microsoft's Windows monopoly isn't Windows itself but rather
that there is no one else producing Windows so that Microsoft is free to charge monopoly prices;
that Microsoft uses Windows monopoly as leverage to sell other (inferior) products (Office Suite; Internet Explorer) or crush competitors of such (Netscape; Corel);and
that no one else gets a chance to improve Windows.
The liver is evil and must be punished.
You pay for stupidity. Let's see... "I got this hot cup of coffee. Now, where could I put it while I pour in some cream and sugar? Ooh ooh, I know! Between my legs of course! That way I can squeeze it tight while I remove the plastic lid that keeps the cup in form.... Ouch, this coffee is hot!"
Maybe McD should sell their coffee only to people who have some common sense? What next? "Hey, I poured this cup of coffee on my head and it burned me! See you in court!"
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
Fine, that may represent the priciples of those involved.
This move casts doubts on those priciples and the integrity of the organization in general. It proves that their volunteer professional organization can be taken over by a representative from a company and used to do that company's buisness. Moreover, it looks like you can do this at the last minute with little planning. They should avoid the appearance of such things, much more the fact.
Stinkers:
The time frame could be as short as a week. That makes the ABA look as easy to use and discard as a paper towel from the men's room of a gas station.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
its like against teh code of ethics for attorneys. of course thats right up m$'s alley..
Greed is part of human nature. in a communist society for instance, whoever distributes the rations will probably take a much larger amount for himself. The strength in capitalism lies in the fact that it uses greed for good.
I really don't see how it uses it for "good", and you sure don't back it up with logic. I'm not a proponent of communism or socialism, but just like the communist organizers will and do apportion themselves much more in terms of resources, what do you think big business executives do? It's all an old boys' network of white collared men patting themselves on the back and similarly apportioning themselves a much, much larger portion of resources than their consumers.
Point me to the big difference, and I'll be on my way, thanks.
--- What
I believe so, Here, Here, Here and Here
There is no conflict of interest here. I'm sure that Microsoft has instructed Mr. Wallis as to exactly what his interests should be. Besides, it's not like this is news or anything. ;-)
...that one of the top lawyers defending the largest corporation in the world would chair the ABA?
Seriously...wouldn't MS hire the best lawyers available that would work for them? Consider the fact that he defended MS in an anti-trust case, wouldn't that be an indicator of his ability? (though not necessarily of his morals, *insert cliche lawyer morality joke here*)
That just says it.
You're right: it isn't a troll, and as the meta-moderator involved, I can (and just did) mark it as Unfair.
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