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Doing the Math in the Microsoft Anti-Trust Cases
coupland writes "Bob Cringely has posted this week's column and has made some interesting comments. He says that regardless of what happens in the EU, DOJ, and class-action proceedings, Microsoft can't lose. Why? Because they make more money by paying lip-service to the law and accepting the occasional fine than by complying. He even does some simple math to prove his point. Fascinating stuff."
There is nothing to stop the EU from retrying them and upping the fine if they keep it up. That's like saying you should get life for your first parking ticket.
Bill Janklow was a recalcitrant breaker of traffic laws. He went on record saying, "Oh, I'll just pay the fine" even though he probably racked up enough violations to have his license taken away. He kept on "paying the fine" until his car met a motorcyle and the person driving the latter was killed.
Judges should act quicker and allow for much less delay is anti-trust cases, because time plays against the ones they're trying to defend.
After 3 days without programming, life becomes meaningless
- The Tao of Programming
Interesting take on things -- and I will say that I am no Microsoft fan. I was ticked when I had to pay the Windows tax to get a PC during the time period Microsoft got away with such tatics. Working in IT myself and being a business owner I will say that as a end user I do not trust Microsoft anymore. Not for a long time. WFW3.11 and NT had it going on back in the day. 95 came to market too soon (and no, I didn't buy). 98 wasn't any good until the se release. Me was nothing but a money grab. 2K is barely usable and XP is a joke (IMHO :).
:). New desktops are either OS X or Linux based. Period. Where possible (CAD groups) the networks have been segmented off and there's little Windows worlds that, in a couple of my offices ... can't see the Internet. Ever. Yeah, I believe it has come to that (already). Funny, but the networks always ... just work. Always.
... and I believe that it does NOT account for people like me. There's many of me out there it seems. I took my mom and dad off Windows years ago and they THANKED ME. Go figure. My contribution to the Microsoft coffers since 2000? $-0-
:). Mac's are BSD based. BSD is alive and strong, don't think it's not... Novell has gone Linux. HP and Dell want into the mix directly. What do the best tv video recorders all run on?
Funny -- of course the offices all run on Linux (and/or Netware to this day, thank you
There something wrong with this guys equations
It sure seems that with EVERY major computer type company you look at they're all going one Unix or the other. IBM is Linux. Redhat Linux (obviously
Microsoft obviously has enough money to be a around for a long while. Even while their markets are being eaten left and right. Windows is, well, a technological JOKE at best -- comparing it personally to any of the Unix's out there. OpenOffice sure isn't going away. Who knows WordPerfect may decently re-appear and there's always -X- company out there to come along. What else does Microsoft make money at? Not much.
I see their bottom line continueing to be eaten away -- left and right. Mean while their costs will continue to sky rocket and things will be, well, fun to watch...
What whould you do if the parking ticket cost less than the parking meter?
To err is human. To arr is pirate.
They're Microsoft! What, were you expecting them to play nice?
The 411 on Bill Jankow
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
Word on the street is that Sun will get $2 billion dollars of vouchers for Windows 98 and Office 97.
A plea for relief from Microsoft's escalating anti-competitive tactics.
Previously, the FCC was limited to fining $27,500 per offense - and Clear Channel, pulling in many millions a year syndicating Howard Stern, would gladly pay the small fine knowing that the 'controversy' only increased his ratings, resulting in even higher profits for them. When the FCC recently changed their fine structure to $275,000 per station per offense, that could result in many millions in fines each time... which is what resulted in Clear Channel dropping Stern from most of their stations.
In both this and the EU/Microsoft cases, small fines don't work, and large fines will either be appealled and reduced or attacked as being unreasonable. The only solutions that will actually change behavior are the ones that will cause serious economic harm, without seeming unreasonable - suspending licenses of non-complying stations, or forcing Microsoft to open code/APIs and unbundle apps (or even splitting up the different sections of the company.)
-T
I like Bob, but invariably he always argues the economics from the business side. What about what you and I paid for this legal battle? What is the average cost of an anti-trust proceeding?
What they needed in this, and many other anti-trust cases, is to think outside the box: why not use the RICO statutes? What not have the Federal Trade Commission declare Microsoft OS defective and pull it from shelves? Why not go after Bill and Steve like they did with Enron's Skilling and Lay?
I think Bob is a good at prognosticating, but seriously, every time he starts talking BUSINESS he simply misses the point.
"This isn't a study in computer science, its a study in human behavior"
Back during the Watergate scandals, a big corp got caught making illegal contributions to a Republican slush fund. They had to pay a fine, of course. A reporter, noticing the paltry size of the fine, remarked to one of the lawyers, "I'll bet your fee was higher than that." The lawyer responded heatedly, "I should hope so!"
But don't respond with a round of lawyer bashing. That's like blaming garbagemen for pollution. Instead, go out and elect a President who will appoint an Attorney General who thinks that anti-trust laws need penalities that actually hurt.
The article does have some valid points but there's some stupid stuff in here as well.
In anti-trust law the actors are individuals, companies, and regulators. The clock rate of the overall system was defined no later than the 1930s when the most recent anti-trust laws were passed. The primary data bus is provided by the U.S. Mail.
Holy mixed metaphors Batman! This just makes no sense. Actors and clock rates! Please... don't overclock your actors! Also what is the US Mail doing in here? Maybe I missed something but I don't recall the USPS having anything to do with Microsoft's legal difficulties.
It looks tough, but Microsoft gets to appeal, remember, and this particular part of the EU bureaucracy has been reversed on appeal two out of the last three times. So whatever the fine, Microsoft has two-to-one odds of not having to pay it
I don't recall the proper term, but this is logical fallacy. The fact that the EU has a lousy record does not give MS 2:1 odds of beating the rap. This is not coin-flipping, this is complex legal stuff. Simple odds do not apply.
However, I really love the last paragraph, especially the suggestion that justice be meted out through death and maiming. I'm all for that!
There are only two ways for a society to address such taking advantage of a legal system. One way is to drag that legal system into the 21st century, which isn't going to happen in America. The other way is to dramatically simplify the legal system along the lines of nomadic justice where there are no prisons nor even capability for collecting damages, so all correction comes down to death or maiming. That isn't going to happen, either, so Microsoft wins.
Be happy. Nothing else matters.
I thought Bob was unusually long winded this time. All he is basically saying is that Microsoft have so much money that no court-imposed monetary penalty can possibly be a problem for them. This is obvious I would have thought.
Even a forced break-up, splitting up the OS and Office divisions, would probably not slow them down too much. Then you would just have 2 monopolies instead of 1.
The forced open-sourcing of Windows is the way to go!
MS has been doing this for YEARS. He's just catching on now? What about DriveSpace and the lawsuit by Stac? MS had to change a little code and Stac went out of business. MS stole Apple's quicktime coded for windows 3.11 and all they got was a slap on the wrists. Makes you wonder how much crap they actually got away with.
Not really, it's just more "Shared Source", but probably a bone tossed in apeasement in connection with the anti-trust settlement. Interesting reading.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Cringley is right (who'd of thunk I'd say that). Not only is the amount fairly trivial, not only can it get reduced or removed via appeal, but the interest they get off the profits from that market while they are appealing will pay for a good chunk of the fines.
So, if punitive monetary damages aren't sufficient to hurt a company, how CAN a government wield a realistic prod to get them back in line? They can't tell MS that they can't sell - companies would go crazy. Tariffs and taxes are again just money. What type of stick could a government wield to actually make MS take notice and play nice?
Cheers,
=Blue(23)
LITTLE GIRL: But which cookie will you eat FIRST? C. MONSTER: Me think you have misconception of cookie-eating process.
Why? Because they make more money by paying lip-service to the law and accepting the occasional fine than by complying.
Sounds kind of like corporate corruption. If you are a corporate officer and you can pillage $100M and face a 10% chance of being caught and receiving a slap on the wrist (paying a $5M fine, being banned from being on a board for directors for five years, and publically announcing that you will stop breaking the law), what would stop you?
In Microsoft's case probably most if not all of their $52B cash pile is ill-gotten and their EU fine is what, $620M? Most government taxes are higher than the 1.2% ill-gotten-gains tax.
Happy Trails!
Erick
http://www.busyweather.com/
Step 3 is: Make so much money that the fines just become a cost of doing business.
I seem to remember[1] this being a problem with the EPA laws years ago. The cost of disposing of waste legally was more expensive than dumping it illegally and paying the fine. It's a no brainer from a business point of view. As long as non-compliance makes them more money than compliance, even with the fines, guess which they're going to choose.
[1] this might be an instance of "creative memory" rather than actual fact, but the analogy still holds.
People's desire to believe they are right is much stronger than their desire to be right.
In other news, I wouldn't care about traffic fines if they only cost a quarter.
This reminds me of the scene in the movie, where Ed Norton's character explains that if it is cheaper for a company to pay fines, than to recall a potentially-deadly product, then they will opt for the former.
This is one rather unfortunate downside of capitalism; it only works when government has enough regulatory power to compell companies not to harm its citizens. Once a government is in the pockets of business, the citizens are in big trouble.
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
I think he dismisses the killing and maiming option far too quickly.
Mac's are BSD based.
They run on a Mach kernel with some BSD userland tools.
Microsoft obviously has enough money to be a around for a long while. Even while their markets are being eaten left and right.
Heh, only on Slashdot do you see statements like this. "Microsoft's market is being eaten left and right!" I've been hearing that since 1998. Linux makes gains here and there, but it's mostly in markets in which UNIX has traditionally existed. Nobody's market is really being eaten except for UNIX. Windows is so fine-grained in the populace, it's become synonymous with computing for most of the world. Contrary to the "frustration" stories you always here, most people are happy with Windows. I can't imagine their frustration stories if given a copy of Linux...
It's my understanding that this happens very often in large corporations. There was a recent article on a large pipe manufacturer that refuses to comply with OSHA standards for factory safety because it's MUCH cheaper to pay an occasional fine than upgrade; don't think this is a tactic only big n' evil Microsoft uses.
He seems to base his whole article around the idea that Microsoft appeals simply to postpone any form of compliance so that they can continue to make as much money as possible.
I wonder if it occurs to him that maybe the appeal because they don't feel what they're doing is illegal, or at least feel the punishment handed out is too harsh.
Wasn't there supposed to be a panel of 3 or so outsiders brought on site to Microsoft to oversee compliance with the US ruling? What ever happened to that? Was it only a suggestion?
I'm not saying 3 people could really change them, but are they actually there watching this unfold or has the oversight since been dissolved for some reason?
Maybe it's me, but that article was waay too long winded to state the obvious: As long as Microsoft can turn a profit after any sort of penalities given them, they have no motovation to comply to any sort of antitrust regulation.
That, and that Pulpit guy likes Geometry.
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
Cringly is generally correct, but he misses a very important point; MS's approach only works if the worst punishment available is a fine. In theory, at least, there are more drastic punishments available. The most obvious, and one that Judge Kollar-Kotelly should consider if she agrees that MS is failing to behave- is to break up the company. Breaking up the company was the originally proposed solution, but it was rejected as too drastic; if fines and behavioral constraints don't work then the courts should consider going back to the original idea.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
Don't believe me? Look up the last slashbork story that quoted him on anything remotely technical and read through the comments, preferably at +3 or so. Yeah, that hurts.
Oh, but when he goes off in a bogus "M$ is teh suxx" rant, he gets airplay. I don't believe for a second he's got the scoop "from friends of friends" on what's going on with the compliance team in Redmond. Bullshit. Not that I don't doubt Microsoft is ignoring it, but that's not the point. But bring up a vague accusation using vague references to vague characters in vague positions and presto, you have a fact! Journalism at its best.
All we need is a little tweak to the legal system to make the officers/directors personally and criminally liable for the actions of the company! No major overhaul of anti-trust law needed.
Can you imagine Bill Gates doing 7-10 in prison?
...because of patent infringements. Patent infringements are like nukes in the IT world. Everyone has them, but no one will sue over them because, well, everyone has them. Also, given the number of patents out there, chances are every major company has inadvertently infringed on somebody else's patent. So here is how it goes down:
Linux adoption continues to increase.
Microsoft has a bad quarter.
Microsoft panics.
Microsoft digs through their 100s of patents, and find something that IBM unwittingly violated.
They sue IBM for say, 3 billion dollars.
IBM digs through its much larger patent portfolio and finds several that MS inadvertently vioplated.
IBM sues MS for 60 billion dollars.
MS wins its suit against IBM and nets 3 billion.
IBM wins its suit against MS and nets 60 billion.
And Microsoft is broke.
Unknown host pong.
0$ profit
-$699 liscencing fee
= -$699 net profit
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
"Justice may be blind, but she is also slow"..."Justice is blind, slow, and unequal"
Hey, stop picking on poor Justice. Sure she may have put on a few pounds, is no longer nicknamed 'swift Justice' any longer and has clouded vision at times, but I'd still rather have her as my friend than my enemy.
"Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion." - Democritus
This is whats wrong with the world today, while the US government has made absolutely sure that where-ever you are in the world, and whatever citizenship you hold, you can be arrested without trial and taken to their camp, but companies can do whatever the hell they want - problems in one country? just move your 'location' to another country - that usually just means changing a few documents, dodgy business practices? dont worry, your legal entity is separate from your company. Fines are money so ofcourse they are going to be treated as just another cost! you have to make real consiquences for a company that breaks the law, fuck les'afairs.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Wasn't it Ford or GM who got caught with this sort of logic? Something about the payouts in lawsuits being less than the cost of a recall?
The only reason we have the rights we have is that people just like us died to gain those rights. -- Cheerio Boy
Nothing can. Hands down. They have the laws, and they have the hearts and minds of ma and pa kettle.
They don't just have advantages; they own every sphere; wether it's on the political, financial or lobbyist front.
I don't think that they should be forcibly 'open sourced'; but I think that to say that it is possible for MS and OSS to co-exist in any way at all is highly, highly out of touch with the realities of the computing and legislative worlds.
Once again we see Cringley stating the obvious but phrasing it a little differently. The EPA fines many polluters each year but quite often the fines are much less than what the polluters make polluting. The gov't gets a little extra cash, the polluters continue to get rich and pollute and we breath foul air.
So maybe we should view M$ programs as a form of digital pollution and turn them into the EPA. I know my health would improve if they fixed a few of their bugs:)
but his two previous articles about EDS/NMCI and the US Navy were much more interesting.
-EB
Do you ever walk alone like a drifter in the dark?
Cringely makes sense, as usual. I was explaining this same line of reasoning to my dad last night when he asked me about the "huge" EU fine. I just laughed and told him this will only make microsoft stronger.
.. another FINE!
Microsoft, like any large company, is not a person, even though it is treated like one by the law.
Microsoft doesn't care about the moral or ethical point of view. They just care about dollars.
And the government can't punish microsoft by putting it in jail, that's not even possible. They can't do anything to microsoft except fine it, basically. The government can say, "you gotta do this and that", but at the end of the day, the only thing compelling MS to comply is
So Microsoft is just playing the numbers. As long as the fines are less than the payout, they'll do whatever the hell they feel like. Stretch it out, make money. Pay the fine, make money. Settle with the government, make money. They just can't lose. As an added bonus, they know the EU probably won't slap any huge fines for a long time after this.
Here's an analogy.. like some of you who are self-employed, I pay estimated taxes every quarter. Sometimes I have a good year and I under-pay. The IRS charges a "penalty" for this, basically charging you daily interest at 8-9% annual rate, or something like that.
You might think at first, like I did, wow, the IRS is punishing me. I'm a bad person if I underpay. No, it's just numbers. There's no moral component. There's no mark left on my record, there's no reason for me to feel guilty.
Just run the numbers, and if you think you can do better than 9% with the money you didn't give to the IRS, go ahead, don't pay them during the year.
The point of the analogy is, microsoft just looks at the numbers and makes the best business decision.
Companies as large and powerful as microsoft simply don't have to comply with every law. That's the sad truth.
I used to work for a large chemical company.
Ever so often green smoke would come up out of one of the smoke stacks. One time a worker looked up and said there's another 50K in fines.
Went on to explain it was cheaper to pay the fine then get rid of properly.
I have no idea if he was serious.
I haven't purchased a copy of MS-Windows (except the version that came with my laptop, which my company purchased for me) in many years-- since MS-Windows 3.1. So, I agree with you completely.
Except.
The company for whom I work is slowly switching from Unix on the desktop (NCD X-Terminals, and SunRay thin clients) to MS-Windows. This is because "The users want it."
Now our IT staff has doubled in size (granted, we are doing more back-end stuff as well, VoIP, more databases, several satellite locations, etc), and most of the time is spent fixing broken computers that were working just fine, broken though the user swears they didn't install any new software, just this cool Santa's Workshop screensaver they downloaded off the 'net.
More and more websites we must access require Internet Explorer. More and more databases are popping up that use MS-SQL Server, or (*shudder*) MS-Access.
Microsoft knows what they are doing. They are using their market clout to keep people locked into their product. When people find out I don't run MS-Windows, they automatically assume I use a Mac, and they scoff. Then, they are bewildered and unsure how to react when I inform them I use Linux; it's as if I suddenly sprouted four-foot nostril hairs, and tiny gnomes were using them to rappel down my chest.
No, Microsoft knows what it's doing, and their bottom line hasn't felt the affects of either Apple *or* Linux. All we've managed so far is to slow their encroachment into the server room.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
What, exactly, does his whole digital design analysis have to do with the rest of his report? After he spent all that time setting up the comparison, he dropped the analogy completely.
Is that the fine was becasue the EU said that bundling Windows Media Player with the OS hurt competition. However, I pay for my Music Match software because I like the way it rips CDs to mp3s, burns CDs, and manipulates playlist better than Windows Media Player. Of all the places where a better competing product could kick Window's butt the media player is certianly one of them.
Instead of fines, make the penaty the removal of upper level managment from the company. You break the law you lose your job. End of story. Wonder how long Micosoft would last without Bill or Steve?
A little sauce for the goose, my friend.
l /main552270.shtml
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/05/05/nationa
This is such a fantastically good idea. Imagine watching our congressppl(on both sides of the isle) try to explain why they can't quite support it.
Hours of entertainment ensue.
At your expense.
Literalism isn't a form of humor, it's you being irritating.
It is true that Microsoft can stretch out the process through an appeal that may take years while they continue to act as before.
However, if the appeal fails and they are required to comply, they cannot avoid the obligation: if they do, the company directors can be criminally charged and put into goal.
Fines don't hurt enough? Finland doesn't have this problem because, for example, a traffic fine is based on ability to pay--the offender's income. That's how Anssi Vanjoki got a $103,000 speeding ticket.
So fines are essentially permits after the fact , and they're often avoided and appealed. As has been said , make it a punishment rather than merely a tax-deductable fee for doing business , and things may change. Otherwise it goes on the balance sheet under pens , paper and lawyer fees.
The fact that no one understands you doesn't mean you're an artist.
... stop the nonsense of giving personhood to corporations and make every legal action be directed against named individuals. If every time a corporation had to go to court, and someone was facing a personal fine, not the company's money but their personal money, or staring at jail time, they would think twice or thrice about being crooks. This nutso artifical human named the corporation is too much of an insulation for the actual humans who make decisions.
IMO, microsoft has more than proven they are chronic serial liars and crooks,and that they will continue to be crooks no matter what, and because of that they should have had their incorporation revoked. That joke fine they got in the US of being able to print up their own fine-money-vouchers, was beyond obscene. Joe and Josephine average can't do that, no "corporation" should be allowed to do that.
Like this free pass? Try to bash Bush after reading this:
? 1c
http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/business/8322515.htm
"former Enron chief executive Jeffrey Skilling is appealing U.S. District Judge Sim Lake's order freezing more than $55 million in his assets....The expanded indictment charged Skilling with 35 counts of fraud, conspiracy and insider trading."
The latest Slashdot meme.
Contrary to popular belief, having a monopoly is not illegal. The specific thing MS was charged with, both in the US and the EU, was using their OS monopoly to create other unrelated monopolies (browser and media player, respectively).
In the US, the penalty was essentially MS saying "we won't do it again" and accepting some oversight. Hasn't worked very well, has it? In the EU, the proposed penalty is a fine and required unbundling of media playing software - this may be a little more effective, if it ever gets past the appeals and enforced.
What the US should have done was to break MS up into at least three companies - OS, Office, and EverythingElse. That way, the EverythingElse company couldn't give the browser away for free, or get away with saying "the browser can't be removed, it's part of the OS". The opportunity to do that was lost between Judge Jackson's bad handling of the case, and the Bush administration's unwillingness to smack MS.
The nice part about structural remedies is that they can tolerate a fair amount of delay, and still hurt when applied.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
Harmtut Pilch of FFII provides a great Analysis on Montis decision.
Hartmut's document in short:
EU Boosts Microsoft's Monopoly
The European Commission's competition procedings against Microsoft have led to a verdict which gives a big boost to Microsoft's monopoly position in the OS market and helps Microsoft expand this position to other markets. While the Commission may have earned substantial revenues for itself by imposing a one-time fine of 1% of Microsoft's liquid cash reserves, the smallprint of the verdict gives Microsoft green light to kill its main competitors in the operating systems market. This smallprint was simultaneously reinforced through backroom deals in the Council's Patent Policy working party, of which copies have been leaked to FFII. Immediately after the announcments the stock value of MSFT rose by 3%.
If a corporation cannot be put in Jail what would the equivalent be? Being blocked from doing business for a period of time? I think it would be apt.
Furthermore, fines are punishment but the problem is the "amount" is a fixed figure and is not proportionate to the amount of income. If I got a speeding ticket, depending on my income at the time, it could seriously hurt me if not do serious harm to my lifestyle depending on the timing and such. As someone else pointed out, if the cost of a parking ticket was less than the cost of the meter, what would you do? Yeah, me too!
Laws should be rewritten in such a way that fines are a percentage of assets and gross income. This would level the playing field greatly though I can't help but believe other problems would somehow arise from such a practice. Anyway, the point is that the fines are punishment if they HURT!
And back to imprisonment of corporations -- I immediately heard the cries of people saying, "what about the innocent employees?!" To that I say, "what about the innocent families of convicted and imprisoned felons?" Tough luck I say because ultimately, prison time (time out) would serve as the best possible deterrent against corporate corruption and malpractice. The threat of punishment is supposed to act as a deterrent. I think this idea could serve that point in such cases.
This reminds me of the scene in the movie, where Ed Norton's character explains that if it is cheaper for a company to pay fines, than to recall a potentially-deadly product, then they will opt for the former.
But that's the way it's SUPPOSED to be.
The company is in business solely to maximize profit. This makes it's behavior fit the definition of psychopathy/sociopathy - like about one/three percent of the population.
The government is in business to co-opt vigilantism by providing a coherent and understandable set of rules, including punishments for non-compliance that:
- convince most psychopaths/sociopaths that their best interests are served by following the rules, and
- taking out of circulation any that don't follow the rules, once it becomes clear that they won't follow them.
If the fines and other sanctions are low enough that businesses find it more profitable to be scofflaws than law-abiding, it's the fault of the GOVERNMENT, according its own legal theories.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Only one way to make Microsoft pay:
Make them declare a dividend worth 50% of their cash reserves. There is no other way I know of to start breaking up their monopoly without burning shareholders.
bash-2.04$
bash-2.04$yes "Don't you hate dialup connections?"| write USERNAME
Maybe it's me, but that article was waay too long winded to state the obvious: As long as Microsoft canturn a profit after any sort of penalities given them, they have no motovation to comply to any sort of antitrust regulation.
Close. But you missed the point of part of the wind: That complying with the rulings COSTS Microsoft more than the fines.
So it itsn't just that the fines are too little to matter. It's that COMPLIANCE is TOO EXPENSIVE, and the fines are too small to shift that balance.
Just like alcohol prohibition and the "War on Drugs", it's explicitly PROFITABLE to DISOBEY the rulings.
Of course this brings up a question:
Does this behavior make Microsoft a "Continuing Criminal Enterprise"?
If so, it could be VERY interesting if that's brought up the NEXT time somebody brings Microsoft in for antitrust or other violations.
I wonder if the RICO laws could be applied, too.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
As you say, a person can face personal fines or jail time.
How do you put a corporation in jail for 90 days?
How do you give a corporation the death penalty?
Once upon a time, the king could revoke your corporate charter, and your company went away. That's the closest thing to a 'death penalty' for corporations that I've ever encountered, but even modern trust busting practices don't go that far (Ma Bell was dismembered, but not actually destroyed).
Similarly, the punishment for some crimes allows for any goods that were acquired in the process of breaking the law to be seized. If you have a product that violates the law egregiously, why shouldn't the benefits (profits) of that product be seized, and funneled back toward the public good?
Fining a company that has $60B in the bank 600 million dollars is chump change. They can take that out of interest payments on their liquid assets. You really want to hurt them, you seize all of their profits (or source code) for that product. Anything less is merely an annoyance.
Just because it works, doesn't mean it isn't broken.
This artical decided it for me! All hail king Jobs! Long live the King! On a more serious note, I REALLY do. All the evidence shows that this company isn't going to go down soon.
That combination of things would eliminate MS as a monopoly overnight. The fixed pricing would drive away the casual consumer in droves...and force at least a few of the big guys to find another alternative...and fast. The Cash issue fixes the key problem of MS...like we all say the burn off cash to buy the customer's love and politician's favor. Take that all away and they have to focus on making profit, not their lame attempts at world domination. One key point is to give the money to the stockholders. First, it helps to build accountability and it actually improves personal property rights over those of corporations...while putting the fear of God in the corps that they could potentially be "disbanded" if they get out of line. Second, it puts MS on the other side of the "wonder kid" fence for a change.. All that money's gotta go somewhere. Much of MS money is made "selling MS" to Wall Street...once they smell money, everybody will want MS shares. But once the checks are written, those "investors" won't give a rats' arse that they once got rich... They'll look at the gutted company and not see easy money and dump stock like cow piles!
Frankly, my opinion is that MS and Co have more money than God right now...it's time for them to stop trying to control everyone's lives and simply go a way and be obcenely rich. It's time to shake up the market and let somebody else get a shot a some money. It's like the third time Michael Jordan came back from "retirment"...it was nice, but we came to watch the new kids play...stop hogging the spotlight old man!!!
The only way to subdue a larger opponent is to divide that opponent's forces and proceed to conquer them. Microsoft and any other large corporation knows this and uses it against any legal strategy which is brought against it. Our government is just too afraid to use it against them.
Remember that the original judgement order would have split Microsoft up. Remember also that they fought it tooth and nail because they knew that if it happened - then they really would have had problems.
Remember AT&T was split up and we got better phone service. IBM had to split up and we now have microcomputers that are so cheap you could work at MacDonald's and still buy one. Microsoft should be split up so software can evolve the way it should.
But then, Microsoft has enough money to buy anything and anyone. So the guy is right. When you are making so much money that you can thumb your nose at the law - who's laws do you live by? The answer is - no one's but your own. Someone giving you a hard time? Buy them off or buy someone who will remove the problem. And that doesn't mean you have to hire a hit man. You just need to hire/buy/create another company to put pressure on legislators, or do letter writing campaigns, or even just visit these people and hint that your company which brings vast wealth into the U.S. would leave and...well, I'm sure you get the picture.
So did the DOJ of Utah. If you have forgotten, remember that Microsoft was in big trouble with the State of Utah for creating a company which wrote ficticious letters to them asking for leniency in their case against Microsoft. IMHO - that is a $10,000.00 fine for each and every letter written and a 5-10 in jail for each offense. Since there were litterally thousands of letters we should never see Mr. Gates or anyone else who was in charge of Microsoft at the time ever again. Yet - there have been no arrests even though Microsoft admitted they had done this.
I think Mr. Roosevelt said it best:"...So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself--nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory."
We need victory. True victory and not hollow lapdog lickings. But all we have gotten so far is a pat on the head.
Later.
Someone put a black hole in my pocket and now I'm broke.
There is, in fact, a corporate death penalty. Remember Arthur Andersen accounting? They were convicted of obstruction of justice. The punishment was corporate dissolution.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
I wonder if its costing Microsoft or IBM anything in legal costs anyway. Don't they have their own lawyers on the payroll? If you think about it, IBM can just rub SCO to the ground, but they are fighting this in the courts. Even, on the off chance they lose, its still like having a giant standing up for the little guy (Linux). I wonder if its costing Microsoft or IBM anything in legal costs anyway. Don't they have their own lawyers on the payroll?
You can skip the article...here's the whole thing in a nut shell:
Let's say non-compliance makes you A but costs you B.
Let's say compliance makes you C but costs you D.
If A-B > C-D, don't comply, just pay the fines.
Done.
In the Article, it mentions that the root of this problem is that the legal system for anti-trust cases is built for the 1800s, and that one of the only ways to fix this problem would be to bring the legal system into the 21st century. IANAL, so what would that involve?
Instead of imposing a token fine which they just consider a 'cost of doing business', you close them down.
Prohibit them from continuing as a business.
Also provide an injunction that prevents them from doing business during the appeal process. Thereby making it a bad thing to prolong the process ( a favorite tactic of large monopolies )
Once the cost/risk is too great, they will behave.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Anyone assuming that the EU commission can be ignored safely because they don't have strong enough sanctions available might be in for a nasty surprise.
$600 million might be not ever so much compared to Microsoft's profits.
However, if they stubbornly insist on violating European competition law, for example by not following the specific orders about unbundling and making available information, the EU could rather quickly fine them again. Maybe a billion this time.
And if that doesn't help, another two billion a few weeks later. A billion here, a billion there, and before you know it, you are talking about real money.
From May 1st on, the Commission also has the power to impose periodic penalty payments under Article 24 of Regulation 1/2003 on top of any additional fines.
The system would obviously be broken if anyone making a profit of more than 10 percent of turnover by violating competition law could get away with cashing the difference between that profit and the fine.
We will see what happens. I don't agree with the idea that EU competition law can be safely ignored.
Lenz Blog
The money that's spent litigating against Microsoft and and trying to bring them down could be much better spent educating consumers. Ignorant consumers are the "enemy" -- not Microsoft.
"how do you give a corporation the death penalty?". simple.
1. seize all of its assets and auction it ASAP.
2. put all managers, middle-management and up in jail.
3. declare all of its rights in contracts invalid.
4. watch.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
In a country with a three-strikes and you're out policy, why can corporations continue to view fines as just a cost of doing business? They are legal people when it comes to free expression, but not when it comes to prison or the death penalty.
While I wouldn't advocate shutting down Microsoft (though maybe companies like Philip Morris), we shouldn't feel bad if we have to split up the company into several smaller ones.
If a democracy implements laws that subordinate entities need not bother obeying, it is not much of a democracy!
Information: "I want to be anthropomorphized"
Motorcyclists should start installing shaped charges on their bikes in carefully chosen spots. It won't take too many vaporized reckless drivers before motorcycles start getting some more respect.
Ah, but then all motorcyclists would be declared "terrorists" and hunted down with B52's dropping daisy cutters onto them, F15's shooting GPS guided missiles at them and A10's strafing them with their very large miniguns.
If I was a biker, I'd rather have the occasional car running over me than facing that kind of persecution.
Ceterum censeo Microsoftem esse delendam
Microsoft interprets government interference as a market force and addresses it accordingly. For Microsoft, the most cost-effective way of dealing with government is to ignore it. If only we could all be so lucky...
"My job is to apply the formula. A is the probability of failure, B is the number of cars in the market, C is the cost of the average out of court settlement. If A x B x C is less than the cost of the recall, we don't do one."
Splitting the OS and Application division into separate companies, on the other hand, might have been meaningful.
It's beginning to look more and more like MSFT against the rest of the computing world. Though I'm sure they'll come out in a couple years saying they always had a Linux strategy. But it'll be different this time.
Yeah, there are a lot like you out here.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
I would have thought any sixth grader could have figured that one out.
Lee Kaiwen, Taiwan
Simple. Revoke their corporate charter. As others have stated which should be obvious to anyone over the age of 9, financial consequences are only effective if they are sufficiently large to overcome the benefits derived by receiving them.
t ml
In some cases, such as with MS, it's virtually inconceivable that such a financial consequence could be introduced. Even a $10B annual penalty would not be effective. Why? Because Microsoft has no other avenue that can augment their current business model enough - they'd simply become sufficiently larger abusers to cover the penalty. The true value of MSs business, barring predatory practices, is massively lower in terms of profits than what they are now so the financial penalties against MS to change their behavior would need to be unacceptably massive.
If Bill Gates was a frequent speeder, what ticket amount would you need to levy to change that behavior. $1M would be inconsequential. $100M might get his attention, but nobody could justify that. You'd take his license away - that works for everybody. If he drives without it, you chuck him in jail. Simple. Jail essentially puts everyone on the same resource plane.
There is no comparable move for corporations except to revoke their charter. That's the equivalent of throwing them in jail, or delivering a death penalty. Take the 3 strikes law and apply it to corporations. You get to break the law sufficiently only twice and continue in a given time period (monopoly, criminal negligence, sell weapons to North Korea, etc. - the equivalent of corporate felonies. We can make a list.) After those, you get a warning, a big fine, some kind of half-assed restriction on your behavior, but you do it a 3rd time, we declare the *corporation* as irresponsible. Shareholders will actually punish the corporation most heavily as they close in on that 3rd strike, the risk of being a shareholder increases - much as it does for corporations with poor bond ratings. That's what'd really keep things in check.
Of course, since these guys essentially run the nation, I'd never fly.
http://www.lightparty.com/Misc/CorporateDeath.h
Finally, someone else sees this. I've seen for years how MSFT signs contracts with companies it needs software of information from. They usually end up with the product one way or another and the original owner attempts court action. Microsoft drags it out long enough that the other company has no more income and must settle for pennies on the dollar for what the technology would have been worth.
Cringely takes this up to the monopoly cases and class actions but it's the same game. This is why I've been saying, since the mid 90's, that any company that works with Microsoft is on the road to distruction. Sure, you might find one or two companies that were bought out and survive within the walls of their Redmond offices but most are just crushed and their bones just tossed out with the trash.
I still can't believe Sun Microsystems tried to use another legal document to settle with Microsoft. Look at all the stuff Sun and Microsoft agreed to. Dumb! Dumb! Dumb! They should have just taken the $$$ and walked away. IMHO.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Wrong. I'll repost someone else's evidence from lower down the page...
Corporations have an obligation to obey the law, to serve the common good, and do no harm. What they get in exchange for this is limited liability - what we get is honest moral companies, at least in principle.
If they violate their end of the bargain (which is far more than simply providing value for shareholders), I see no reason why we as a community should continue to extend to them the very great gift of limited liability. Every board member, every decision-maker, every shareholder should be held personally and financially responsible for their share of the damage once the decision to revoke a corporate charter has been taken.
SofaMan -- Occasionally Battling Evil With His Mighty Powers Of Indolence.
I suppose the courts should reinburse SCO shareholders when their share price plumets after they lose a few cases too.
Intellectual Property
Intellectual: of the mind
Property: that over which one has control
Too bad I already dumped my SUNW, it was up 20% on the MSFT settlement. Go figure.
Seems like MSFT goes UP 1% for every $500M in fines/settlements... heh.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Ms. Stewart, if she goes to some sort of prison, will go there because she broke the law(s) in a most serious way and was found by a jury of her (citizen) peers to be guilty beyond reasonable doubt.
If someone else *should* go and does not, and owes their freedom to a gender or fraternity or whatever, that does *not* mean that Ms. Stewart necessarily should go free.
A little logic would solve this in a flash... and MS is appealing, as well she should and as is within her rights. We can call her a Convicted Felon if we like, but those of us who care about our civic reputations might better refrain. The last legal word has not been spoken.
So before you make a light comparison of Ms. Stewart to the Bush family, maybe you should think for a moment about the foundations of the US legal system.
There may well be crimes for which the Bush presidents (and numerous others) would be charged in somebody's idea of a perfect world.
But that has no particular relevance to the Martha Stewart case, and pretending it does only serves to reduce the seriousness of the anti-Bush position - which I doubt was the intent of the parent post.
This Like That - fun with words!
How should the Justice Department take on large multi billion dollar Corporations?
Easy : never ever put financial sanctions on them. Only put regulatory sanctions on such Corporations. For instance take the EU vs. Microsoft case : a $600.= million fine is pocket money.
So demand Microsoft to remove the Media Player with the sanction , that if Microsoft fails to do so in time, Microsoft would just loose their commercial chamber registration and license, and thus would be forced to stop doing business in Europe. Easy as it gets.
Robert
The US is not Europe, or the rest of the world.
No shit, Sherlock. Once again, I ask you: RTFA. Pay special attention to Cringely's remarks on the EU suit against MS.
I know this because Tyler knows this.
Passing a law that forbids governments and public institutions to buy products from convicted companies would be much better and a real punishment.
The threat to Microsoft is not the fine. Its restrictions on bundling and opening up APIs, and its likely that these are going to imposed pretty much immediately. The reason these are significant is because of Microsoft's business model. They rely on sales, not services. This means that they need users to buy software and upgrades and they need to constantly expand to new markets. At the moment, these strategies aren't working very well. There are major complaints about support and licencing of existing installations and the attempts to expand look successful at first but are loss-makers: Last year MS server sales made a loss, and X-Box has always been hugely subsidised. Even worse for Microsoft, they are being threatened in their core market, as Linux on the desktop is starting to be taken seriously - especially in the corporate market. Microsoft is desperate to expand into the multimedia market: they want you to use Microsoft TVs, home media centres and portable media players. To do this they have to be able to sell XP embedded and bundle media player. These are key parts of the on-going EU investigation.
Microsoft is a lot less strong than it looks - its all based on share value. If in a few years time desktop share starts to fall due to corporate Linux use, users are even more reluctant to upgrade yet again or purchase 6GHz machines with 4GB memory to run Longhorn, and they have no escape route into other markets because of EU action, they won't be a happy company.
Once Microsoft or another company has dominated the market through strong arm tactics, the strong arm tactics are no longer necessary. The US can wag its finger at Microsoft and say that they cannot forbid PC makers from installing other browsers, but now that most people consider Internet Explorer as "the internet" and the competition is basically dead, what's the point? Microsoft may agree to not prevent OEM's from installing OS2 Warp and BeOs, but what's the point now? In the time between when the problem came to light, the investigation happened, the trial happened, and appeals were exhausted, Microsoft's dominance of a market has become so assured that their previous tactics have become unnecessary. If at that point they are "forced" to remove their strong arm tactics, there is no credible competition left to pose a threat and Microsoft has a complete hold over the standard.
I don't think Judges will act any quicker, but I do think the stick they carry should be appropriately sized for punitive effect. If you've made 50 billion dollars through illegal activities, that's 50 billion less you should have the day after the judge's gavel hits the table. If you have gained your monopoly position through control of a standard, the group that controls that standard is now a separate company. If your top executives made most of their money knowingly through this company's illegal activities, then tomorrow those tope executives are going to have a hard time putting food on the table.
The ______ Agenda
Corporations are natural individuals
Disregard child and parent. I didn't see that someone else had already posted info about the 14th amendment.
There is credibility at stake. Microsoft keeps getting in trouble with justice all around the world for business practices that affect the freedom of their customers. People should start wondering if it makes them a viable business partner to base their own vital IT infrastructure on.
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
This brought about sunday trading in the UK. The DIY stores and waterstones made more money by trading on sunday than the fines they paid. Eventually the law was changed.
Click on search, stupid dog comes up and it searches through every single .zip file on your harddrive, making a search for file uselessly slow. Oh well, back to the command-line...
And that media player default skin is just offensive. Along with microsoft's insistance that every type of file (even .mid or .mp3) should be able to include executable code to aid virus propagation (not all of that was intentional, but how hard can it be to read a file!).
Of course the problem for 3d artists was that microsoft put a crash key (the one with a windows logo, next to the ctrl and shift keys) on all new keyboards, which killed 3D Studio R4 stone dead if ever you pressed it. That's why artists would physically rip out the windows keys from keyboards.
I think every IT professional, if not user, has come across this phenomenon. Even if you keep everything else constant (insomuch as you have control), the thing JUST. GETS. SLOWER. My theory? It's because you get used to faster technologies around you. Use a different computer (faster) at work, and that Mac LC II at home just doesn't seem so quick any more. Even just use it once and you get a different feedback response, something much more closely approximating 'instant'.
Of course, fragmenting etc. affects it, no doubt. But I'm talking even after a reinstall of the exact original software, the thing will just 'feel' slower. It's all based on perception. Win XP is by no means quick, on any hardware I've used (up to P4/2.4), in terms of UI response. Mac OS X is a joke on anything less than Panther on a G4.
Personally I know it's time to upgrade my system when the UI responsiveness is too slow to bear. That usually comes with having to install the latest Internet Software (IE, Real, WMP, etc.) and/or Operating System, just to access poorly-designed websites. But even if I don't upgrade anything, my experiences with using systems elsewhere make my static, unchanging, regularly defragged and reinstalled system just that much less enjoyable to use.
& would pay them off concurrently by spending a weekend in Jail every year (serving out the highest fine serves out the lot)
Then some stupid blood fine defaulter with a Yugoslav name went & got comatosed by a lifer, so the NSW govt got rid of the pauper's alternative & now cancels peoples drivers licenses & car regos if they don't pay their fines.
Still makes no differance - my license was cancelled about 10 years ago & I haven't re-registed my car since, but I still drive. Actually driving unlicensed/unregisted has improved my traffic compliance no end - in 10 years I only got done driving once & that was driving a mate's car that actually looked unregisted, & at 2AM at that. Served me right I spose by letting a free shot tempt me against my better judgement.
BTW it's been over a year & I haven't paid those fines either..........fuck em I say.
This reminds me of a law that's gone out-of-fashion here in Toronto, Canada. When I first moved here in the '90s, it was illegal for stores to be open on the day after Christmas... but the Eaton's department store would. They figured that they made more money than the fine. As the years went by, more and more stores on Yonge Street followed Eaton's example. Today, Yonge Street is busier the day after Christmas than any Saturday... despite the fact that it's illegal.
Well, sometimes it works out for the better. I've never understood why stores would want to close on one of the two days most people can shop. Or why people would want to cut their available shopping time in half.
Laws like that are silly. They don't help the businesses or the people.
People's desire to believe they are right is much stronger than their desire to be right.
If Bill Gates went to jail and got raped, there's a good chance he would contract something like AIDs or Herpes. Nearly overnight you'd see a couple billion dollars go into researching cures for those diseases.
s/idealog/ideolog/g - it's late, and about to get later.