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Appeals Court OKs Microsoft Antitrust Settlement
mbstone writes "The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has upheld [pdf] the settlement reached between Microsoft and the U.S. Justice Department in the antitrust case filed in 1998, beating back a challenge by Massachusetts, the only state that didn't settle. Many critics, of course, believe that Attorney General John Ashcroft took a dive on the case which was originally filed by former Clinton Administration Attorney General Janet Reno."
From the articles:
Court:This is a resounding victory for the Justice Department and American consumers. The Court addressed the merits of every argument raised against the Department's remedy by two industry groups and the sole remaining state plaintiff (Massachusetts), and it clearly and thoroughly rejected all of them. The Court's forceful decision confirms what the Department has been saying all along - our settlement protects the public by providing a full and effective remedy for Microsoft's anticompetitive conduct.
MS: "We remain 100 percent committed to fulfilling our obligations under the settlement and earning the trust of our customers and the industry," Smith said. "We are excited about the potential our industry has to bring new innovation into people's lives and help them realize their full potential."
My comments: In order to see what a real inovation is, one has to compare firefox's mouse gestures to Ie's SP2. I mean, who gives a damn about mouse whatnot, we don't want viruses, right?
But I actually don't care since I switched to Gentoo..
A drop in the bucket here. Overseas sales, sales here, and a lack of change in their business structure means that this settlement accomplished nothing.
The only hope now is that the negative publicity will affect sales somehow. Stupid Ashcroft.
My uncle. A local politician is fond of the saying. "Law is like sausage, anyone who likes either should never watch them being made". Whoever says justice has nothing to do with politics, or claims law and its use is not always someone enforcing their morality on someone else, needs to take a look at this case.
âoeTolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth, but never to persons.
The truth of the matter is, even a couple hundred million dollars of fines is not that much of a hit to Microsoft, and it isnt exactly a secret that Microsoft holds a near monopoly, so, the whole lawsuit is a nonissue in the end
The blame starts with Reno and the people that were assigned to the case.
Wha...? The lawyers she had on the case knocked it out of the park. It's now out bobbing in the ocean somewhere. Every time David Boies brought up a MSFT witness, he was able to discredit them and show that MSFT was indeed using its monopoly power to limit competition.
Reno has nothing to do with what judge is assigned to a particular case (would you want the DA to be able to choose what judge hears every case? I didn't think so either). What Judge Jackson did was pretty bad and he should have known better.
But Ashcroft pretty much rolled over as soon as he was AG. He settled and tried to get everyone else to settle as well. Why is a different debate, but he certainly had enough evidence to win in a new trial.
Wait a second, Bush was given money, and then he told the DOJ to seek a settlement as soon as possible, and you're saying this is evidence of a lack of collusion? I think it's time for you to reexamine your logic.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Unfortunately, the courts will probably never be a good place to rein in a monolopy. By the time it works it way through the entire legal process, none of the real competitors are still alive to benefit from any decision.
Within the last year, the Dr. Dos suit got settled. Who benefitted from that? And it is unlikely that Netscape (which exists in name, but not much else) would have gotten much out of this suit if things had gone differently. And as much as I love FireFox, the biggest thing it has going for it is the fact that IE development has stagnated for some time.
When it comes to technology, things change so fast that any delay in settling any issues means that whatever decision is finally made, it will probably be pretty much meaningless. Inertia is a powerful force, and most people don't bother to download updates to their OS, let alone download and install alternative replacements for something that already came on their box.
But Ashcroft pretty much rolled over as soon as he was AG. He settled and tried to get everyone else to settle as well. Why is a different debate, but he certainly had enough evidence to win in a new trial.
Here's a link for you. When the (then) richest man in the world donates to your boss's campaign, I think you're going to pay him back in some manner or another.
A quick note, though...There are as many Democrats as Republicans on that list of donation recipients. Bill Gates donates to those with power...not necessarily to those of any particular party.
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