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."

Comments

I wonder what'll happen in the EU

[bollow (a) NoLockIn]

I wonder what'll happen in the EU anti-trust sanctions. If they manage to get off the hook there, it'll be hard to convinve me that they didn't buy the European politicians.

The government fell short in the long run

[Gary Destruction]

The government is notorious for being both sloppy with its networks and being computer illiterate. The prosecutor in the anti-trust case didn't even have an email address as of late 2000.
There was an article by Scott Hacker called He who controls the boot loader. It mentions how the DOJ missed the real issue entirely.
It wasn't web integration that did the damage. It was Microsoft classifying its boot loader as a trade secret that toppled competition.

Don't ignore Ashcroft's complicity

[Doc Ruby]

Yet another insane BushCo attack/apology, from an Anonymous inverted Coward. Reno won her antitrust case against M$. Ashcroft ignored the monopoly, cutting a cheap deal that keeps M$ in control of the sick state of disrepair from which we all suffer. The fact that Ashcroft is required to protect us from cyberterror is yet another reason the guy should be fired and prosecuted for malfeasance, and even treason. But of course, ACs like the parent poster will instead call for his elevation to the Supreme Court for his crimes. Why do they hate America?