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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..
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.
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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.
The anti-trust case seemed to disappear from the media very quickly once the Bush administration came in. I think Microsoft is going to get less support now because of the EU anti-trust lawsuits as well. It will be interesting to see if there is a different decision reached between the states and the EU.
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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.
It's not really news anymore. It's not much of a surprise, anyway. I'm nore interested in the EU case. Oh.. this isn't anti-microsoft enough..
Microsoft is like.. the man.. and I am like.. the person being oppressed by said man. Yo.
Of course Ashcroft went limp on Microsoft. After all the money that they funneled to the republican party, how could he do anything other than bend over and grab his ankles for his new corporate masters?
From here:
During the last election campaign, Microsoft employees gave more than $50, 000 to the Bush campaign, while the company and its workers gave $500,000 in unlimited, soft money donations to the Republican National Committee for use in Bush's battle against Democrat Al Gore. Gore did not receive any money from Microsoft, according to election commission records.
According to data supplied by the Center for Responsive Politics, Microsoft employees also donated $22,500 to Bush's recount effort, and a Microsoft executive gave $100,000 to the Bush-Cheney Inauguration Committee.
Of course, nobody should be surprised by this anymore.
Where's my lobbyist? Right here.
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
Nice try, but true.
From a news article: "Massachusetts was the only state to hold out against the DoJ settlement. And it is still talking a good fight. According to Massachusetts Attorney General Tom Reilly, the judgment shows that antitrust laws are not working. 'Our high-tech economy will not reach its full potential unless regulators and the courts are willing to deal with Microsoft and its predatory practices,' he said, Reuters reports."
Developers: We can use your help.
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.
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.
Now I don't know where the San Francisco Chronicle gets their data, but opensecrets.org (the defacto source for Slashbots) paints a very different picture of contributions... They still gave more to Republicans, but not significantly more... Heck, excluding the whole anti-trust thing, tax cuts are business friendly. That's enough to earn Bush support, really.
Besides, the person who really lost the antitrust case was Judge Jackson. If he hadn't gone on about Microsoft being a bunch of evil bullies his breakup order would've stood. However, when an appeals court sees a lower Judge out spouting off belligerence in public interviews while a case HE is working on is winding through the legal system, they tend to act in favor of the person being punished.
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
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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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.
I'd love to see a nice documentary on the Microsoft case and how the Bush administration rolled over and let Bill have his way.
Maybe he could call it "Justice 1.0," or something.
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?
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You win the prize for being the first person to do so in this thread. Congratulations. You have also won the SUPER BONUS PRIZE as this is now the ONE BILLIONTH TIME someone has blamed the Clinton administration for something the Bush administration dropped the ball on.
Congrats!
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