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Missed Opportunities in U.S. v. Microsoft
Chin is currently an associate professor teaching antitrust and intellectual property law at the University of North Carolina. According to his faculty biography, Chin also earned a doctorate in computer science in 1991 as a Rhodes scholar at the University of Oxford. After a few years of teaching math and CS, he picked up a J.D. at Yale Law School, and eventually ended up working behind the scenes on the Microsoft case.
Chin's article raises some new points about the Microsoft case that don't seem to have been considered by any of the parties, courts or commentators during the trial, such as the fact that the Windows and Internet Explorer software products actually consist of legal rights and technological capabilities, not lines of code. A longer piece by Chin is being published in the Harvard Journal of Law and Technology."
The government wasted its best opportunity to avoid this result three years ago, when the incoming Bush Justice Department, in a stunning reversal, decided to drop its "tying" claim. Still, the road not taken -- pressing Microsoft to offer a neutral choice of Web browsers for use with Windows -- started to look a lot more appealing this summer, when Internet Explorer's security flaws made national headlines.
Well at least now the DOJ has a lot more pressing matters at hand... Like getting the recent ruling against the Patriot Act overturned so those evil fucking terrorists can't get away and those sneaky American citizens can't hide their financial records from them.
I always felt that if the government continued to pursue their case against MSFT they would only pay for it in higher licensing fees later. Choose your battles... Money from the terrorists and the citizens or money from MSFT?
For more enjoyment and greater efficiency, consumption is being standardized: http://www.newsobserver.com.nyud.net:8090/opinion/ story/1686331p-7930186c.html.
Sure a secure Microsoft product is what the consumer wants but so is profit margin and familiarity. Sometimes inferior products dominate the market for no good reason whatsoever, remember the Chrysler K car?
...another reason to remove the Bush administration from office: it's inability to push for open markets when it would hurt existing market stranglers like Microsoft. Republicans like to talk about free markets, but as soon as it takes away their power, they cringe in fear.
+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
"Internet Explorer will continue its chokehold on the World Wide Web. " Only if a better alternative is not adopted as the 'browser of choice' by the WWW community. Go FireFox!
From TFA:
If it did, you would own the Windows code on your computer and could sell copies of that code with impunity.
Yeah, but who would want to buy it?......
-- Fugacity: Confusing chemists since 1908
I'm not about to contest the verdict - that a monopoly existed and so on. That's done. But I think the whole thing smacked of a hurried witch hunt decided from the beginning. Back then Microsoft was pretty much apolitical and their legal team was about a fifth of what it is today. Since that case they've wised up to lobbying and campaign contributions as a way to "play" the system, just like any other big corporation in this country.
Ah well.
It slowed down Microsoft's monopoly engine long enough for Linux to rise, Apple to recover and release a very successful new OS and for groups like Mozilla to start fighting against Microsoft. Does anyone really want the court to hand a "victory" to those of us not fond of Microsoft? Does anyone think that Netscape or Sun or any of the other plaintiffs were really good, noble, altruistic companies that didn't salivate at the thought of filling in the vacuum left by a devastated Microsoft?
The way I see it, the case was good for another reason as well. It forced debate on both sides of the political spectrum, especially the right. Many conservatives were floored when Robert Bork, a well-respected conservative legal authority, agreed with Ralph Nader on Microsoft's trial. It helped bring new ideas and attitudes into respectability on the right, and it allowed left-leaning libertarians to point to a good example of how unfettered corporate power is still a real danger.
I would go so far as to say that the case did its job just fine, and coupled with Microsoft's recent security problems, a door is opening for free market enterprise once more. I will go so far as to say that there are a lot more Firefox users out there than we'd have previously guessed. I read comments all the time on sites like FreeRepublic which aren't known for their technical insight saying how Firefox kicks ass. In fact, of the dozens or so on threads about Firefox, most are overwhelmingly "I can't believe I ever used IE now that I have Firefox."
Microsoft, like Rome, didn't build their Empire in a day, and thus we won't dismantle it in a day. It'll take several more years of whittling away at them on multiple fronts. We just have to learn from history and be more civilized and cooperative if we win, than the barbarians were when they took down the Roman Empire.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
Either Mr. Chin is living in a cave, or he wrote this piece some time ago. With Firefox numbers skyrocketing and even CERT suggesting that running IE is inviting virus infections, his statement, "Internet Explorer will continue its chokehold on the World Wide Web" seems quite out of touch with present reality.
About the word "if": If bullfrogs had wings, they wouldn't bounce around on their little green butts.
If Judge Jackson had kept his mouth shut just a little longer, we'd be living in a considerably different world today.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
That's because Internet Explorer has a lot of security flaws.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Any company that purposefully builds a Web browser (IE) into an OS (Windows) as deeply as possible and as quickly as possible in an attempt to win a court case is asking for trouble. Any software engineer with an IQ above 70 knows that this is a bad idea. The sad part about this is that people who use Windows/IE/Outlook pay the price. How many IE vulnerabilities are in the wild? Hundreds.
In short, MS tossed sound engineeing principles out the window and placed legal and marketing concerns ahead of everything else. They deserver the shitty security reputation they have. They built it themselves... purposefully to win a court case (period).
From the article:
Internet Explorer will continue its chokehold on the World Wide Web.
That's a joke. IE is losing marketshare at an amazing rate. Link. All kinds of technical and non-technical sources are recomending a shift-away from Internet Explorer.
But switching can be difficult. Windows users who want to access a document on the Web are sometimes required to use Internet Explorer, flaws and all, even if they have chosen a different product for that purpose.
That's right. A web-publisher can put any conditions he/she wants on viewing the content in the question. You can be asked to pay money, watch an advert, or use certain software.
By tilting Windows users toward Internet Explorer in this and other ways over the past nine years, Microsoft has ensured that many consumers are using a less secure browser than they would if offered a neutral choice, and prevented other software companies from competing for these customers on the merits.
That's untrue. MS pre-selecting IE does not preclude others from competing. That's a blatantly untrue statement. It makes it more difficult. That's a big difference.
The Clinton Justice Department proved all of these facts at trial. Yet the lower courts did not move to restore freedom of competition in the market for Web browsers, because they found Microsoft's appeal for freedom more compelling.
MS's argument all along was that it's market share was at risk, and that any moment, a competitor could grap the reigns and win back the web. They argued that the barriers to entry - regardless of what they did - were very low. Low and behold, the best browser on the market is free, open source, and multi-platform. On top of that, other browsers like Opera are low-cost and multi-platform (and also superior).
One such innovation was in writing the shared blocks of code that support both operating system and Web browsing functions in Windows. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed, describing Windows and Internet Explorer as "physically and technologically integrated" through this sharing of code.
Microsoft was right. Using this method of integration is very common place now. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. What if MS loses market share and Konqueror becomes the dominant browser. Will makers of file-manager utilities sue the developers and because their product cannot compete with products that tie into the rendering engine?
By a software product does not consist of code. If it did, you would own the Windows code on your computer and could sell copies of that code with impunity.
You license the code, as you goes on to point out. But regardless of the license, the heart of software is code, not IP.
The courts have missed a golden opportunity to affirm the freedom to compete in the information age.
The courts did nothing to MS. So ask yourself. Is there more or less competition than there was in the 90's? How is that possible if MS was able to do what the government allege? If MS had an illegal monopoly on operating systems for x86 computers, how come there are more now than at anytime in history? How come users have dozens more choices than ever? And if MS leveraged the operating system lock up browsers, how come we have more choice now than ever for browsers? How come on x86 alone there are at least 4 major choices for quality web-browsing?
The government was wrong. MS had a large marketshare, but short of patenting everything in sight, it is impossible to have a monopoly on intellectual property like software.
You cannot corner the supply side of software!
This is not flamebait.
"A witty saying proves nothing." ~Voltaire
"d'Oh!" ~Homer
Who'd have thought an editorial would be biased?
p -7930186c.html
http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/story/1686331
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
- Charles Darwin
According to Microsoft, antitrust law should never require changes to the design of software products, because this will chill the freedom of programmers to innovate. One such innovation was in writing the shared blocks of code that support both operating system and Web browsing functions in Windows. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed, describing Windows and Internet Explorer as "physically and technologically integrated" through this sharing of code.
I wondered throughout the original trial, and later, why there were no security experts called by the DoJ to testify to the security problems inherent in this integration?
The integration was clearly done at a very late stage in the design and in such a way that they had to use "guess and hope" to figure out whether a document was originally a local document called up by a component like Windows Explorer, or a remote document called up by Internet Explorer or Outlook. If they had left the web access as part of the web applications, and just used the HTML control to render HTML, then a huge percentage... probably a majority... of the worms and viruses and spyware spread by remote attacks on Windows via web or email would not have been possible.
But they already had IE, and they needed to come up with a reason to bundle IE with the desktop despite their agreement with the DoJ from the previous case, so they made pretty much the whole thing into an embedded component and set us up the bomb.
"Yet another reason for me to ignore people who start a sentence with 'yet another reason'."
Irony, meet NanoGator. NanoGator, meet irony. I'll leave you two alone to get acquainted now.
Just like the assault weapons ban and stem cell research funding. Soon you'll see things quietly expiring all over the place... the Bill of Rights, the US Constitution, and the political opponents of the 'quiet expiration' domestic policy.
The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed, describing Windows and Internet Explorer as "physically and technologically integrated" through this sharing of code.
Just a side note: Safari is integrated into Mac OS X (share some GUI code with the rest of the OS and probably some HTMl rendering with Mail.app) and if a user decides that he doesn't want it installed all he has to do is delete it - why can't Microsoft make this work?
However the real question is not why can't one remove IE, but why can't there be a level playing field? Why does M$ get to use its OS monopoly to prevent OEMs from also installing Netscape, Mozilla, or any other browser? Anyway, is any of this a surprise? No; not at all.
-Scott
Apparently no other browser ever has had a security flaw. Ever. Mozilla and Opera bugtraqs are empty files
This isn't just about some browser's security problem. It's about software monoculturism (is that a word?).
IE is not without merits and people will continue to use it. But it's market dominance create a chicken and egg problem: people will build web sites tailored to it, and people will use IE because the web sites are built so.
Then if a flaw appears in the browser, *everybody* will be affected. (ok, not everybody, but the non-IE users will be so few as to be negligible).
Of course other browsers have flaws. And those IE users that don't bother patching/updating will most likely don't bother patching/updating Firefox/Mozilla/Opera. But at least it won't affect the better part of the internet users.
No sig
Now that the apeal time has passed... do we expect MS to start up new and improved underhanded dealings?
If they did, it would be a hard sell for the government to bring another case against the giant. "Yeah, we got crap last time and spent a bazillion dollars on the prosecution, but this time will be better!"
Yes. This is getting common. Offensive remarks aimed at non conservatives are left alone. Neocon unfriendly observations/facts/links get mod-abused out of existence. I don't know where it's coming from.
Oops, I spoke my mind. That's a thoughtcrime here these days.
"A witty saying proves nothing." ~Voltaire
"d'Oh!" ~Homer
Here's what I got out of the article:
The Clinton DOJ trailed to(rightfully) nail Microsoft in an antitrust case.
The Bush DOJ was not interested in nailing Mircrosoft in an antitrust case.
My opinionated speculative unfound but probably correct conclusion - Microsoft bought its way out through campaign donations supporting Bush.
I'm about sick and tired of the argument that Microsoft locks in customers by including IE with Windows installations. The fact is that there is choice in today's market. If you want to point the finger, point it at the end user who is to damn lazy to install a new browser. Also, point the finger at web developers who create web sites that will only work properly with IE. If Microsoft put code in their OS that prevented the user from installing or using a browser other than IE, I could see where that would cause concern. The fact is that they don't. I realize that many people on here will not like my views, and that's fine. I know there are plenty of things that Microsoft does/has done that aren't exactly ethical business practices. But the browser argument is old. In fact, just about every single extra application (notepad, media player, etc.) that Microsoft includes with their OS can be found from other software vendors or for free. The only people Microsoft is locking in are the computer manufacturers and other hardware companies. John Doe has more choice these days then ever before.
I can't even point out that his post isn't flamebait? Abusing the moderation system makes this forum less enjoyable for everyone.
"A witty saying proves nothing." ~Voltaire
"d'Oh!" ~Homer
I hate MS as much at the next guy, excluding work where I have no choice I've moved to solely Apple and Linux, and even gotten all my friends/family to get Firefox. Implying that web pages not working in any browser but IE, however, is not entirely true. The fault lies in the hands of web developers who were too lazy/short sighted to see beyond IE compatibilities. While MS did only enflame this problem by making pages that shouldn't work actually work in IE, if these sites had been properly coded to begin with, they would have still worked in IE and also in every other browser.
in bed.
It was not an article, it was an OP-ED peice. Which means it is this one guy's opinion. What makes his opinion so interesting (as opposed to yours or mine) is the fact that he was involved in the Anti-Trust trial and until today he was unable to voice his opinion on this subject.
As for his mentioning security flaws 5 times to your single mention of Firefox/Opera problems, it appears the balance between here and reality is maintained. Generally speaking, flaws in IE tend to appear 5 times (if not more) frequently than Firefox or Opera ones.
Voting them all out of office, now that's change I can believe in.
Why do you think banks still use AS400's and code in FORTRAN?
FORTRAN is for pipe stress freaks and crystallography weenies. The language of choice for banking is COBOL.
I wouldn't even mention this if Chin would have left the politics out of it...
I am disappointed by the Bush administration's handling of the case but the fact is that the case would have _never_ happened if the first Clinton DOJ investigation hadn't ended in the consent decree.
Not quite.
It is logical and reasonable for Dell or HP to bundle a browser (or whatever) since they actually sell to end users. It makes no sense for Microsoft to do this since they are completely unwilling to support this decision. Instead, they force the likes of Dell to buy something they don't want while forcing the same OEM to clean up the mess afterwards.
The "customer" being screwed by Microsoft is not the "end user" but OEMs.
End users just get caught in the crossfire.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Microsoft was completely in the right to bundle a browser.
This wasn't the point to the lawsuits. They not only bundled the browser, but they did it in a way that was irremovable, forced default settings to use it, forced incompatible changes to industry standards such as HTML, and essentially extorted OEMs to not bundle alternatives. That's where the word "antitrust" comes in. IE on Windows is really nothing like Netscape/Mozilla on Linux/Solaris/HPUX/etc or Safari on Mac OS X.
-- "Makes Little Debbie look like a pile of puke!" - Moe Szyslak
While it's fine to include one, it's NOT fine to integrate it to the point where you CAN'T GET RID OF IT.
That's what everyone's problem is in this case. Tell you what, you remove Internet Explorer from your machine, and replace it with Firefox. Then come back and tell us how you did it. You will be the next internet God.
Windows and Internet Explorer software products actually consist of legal rights and technological capabilities, not lines of code
Uh huh. And an RIAA product contains not waveform data, but rather the capability to produce pleasing auditory sensations in a subset of the population.
In my humble opinion, I think the Feds pushed the wrong solution in the US v. Microsoft case.
Why didn't the Feds push for separating sales of the operating system from the hardware? By pricing the operating system as a separate cost item it would have actually enhanced competition for the operating system market on x86-compatible PC's, and it would have encouraged the FreeBSD and Linux crowd to develop their operating systems much faster because there would be a truly healthy competition of what operating system you want install on your computer.
"You don't give your enemy a place to hide and regroup. That's why we went into Afganistan."
Yes, that was obviously a visionary and practically effective policy wasn't it. I do think however that it was undermined somewhat by the subsequent invasion of Iraq.
Cynical types may think that after this excellent corrective measure Afghanistan is now a no go area governed by local warlords fighting for control of the burgeoning heroin trade whilst the on-going situation in Iraq is drawing much larger numbers of impressionable young men into the world of terrorism and intimidation and that the world in general is now much more likely to suffer from terrorist activities.
Even more cynical types might surmise that as the US Government came to terms with 9/11 and realised there was little they could practically do in public to "right the wrong" decided instead to put on a display which everyone could understand with an invasion of Afghanistan involving lot's of precision weaponry, terrorists lurking in caves and illegal combatants during the course of which they realised there was a good chance they'd get away with more the same in Iraq.
Luckily I am not a cynical person. Go USA, Kick That Terrorism To The Kerb !
The problem is most people who also use winxp/etc are on dialup (probably unlike most people here). I don't know about the rest of you but, when I was on dialup, updating my box running winxp was such a hassle i never did it (and i never got worms either because I was never online for long enough). As more and more people subscribe to high speed internet solutions we will see more automated patching, etc because people will be online most of the time, ms/winxp will start making this the default windows update action. But as for now this isn't the case.
What most people here don't understand is that the majority of americans barely even know how to use a computer, and could care less about patching or updating when all they do is dial up and look at email for about 15mins and then disconnect.
most of the world don't even have computers or never have even seen one. They don't even have enough to eat and could care less.
If websites stopped serving pages to Internet Explorer, users would be forced to install another browser. Or, for example, if IE is detected add an extra large banner promoting a Mozilla based browser. Instead of 'Best Viewed with Internet Explorer', it would be 'Worst Viewed'
that reminds me of something else I was thinking of...
Websites and other internet services should start denying services to 'bad' net citizens, a sort of global blacklist.
Say everytime a monitor machine recieves a spam email, a ddos attack, worm propageation attept, etc; it sends a note to one of the blacklist servers. The blacklist server won't instantly list for one bad action, but would require multiple monitors to report a problem with an IP address.
every once in a while ISPs, Servers, Service Providers (think perhaps Battle.net, Steam, web-comics, free e-mail providers, along with free/cheap hosting providers) would download the current list, and start providing blank/warning pages to any requests from those addresses. Corporate internet connections could just outright block any packets at the firewall.
8 bad IP adresses in a C block, blocks the whole c block.
The Monitor servers would have to be authenticated and somewhat secret, otherwise false reports could be used to deny service to a target or the IP addresses excluded from future worm versions and the Blacklist distribution security would still be an issue (if served normally, it would be a DDOS target, if 'push' delivered, it could be spoofed without good authentication.) I'm thinking of a USENET style list distribution method. a listing would also expire fairly quickly.
The distiction with this being, that it's cross service. You send bad e-mails, your web browsing is blocked. You run an open proxy, you can't send e-mail. You have a worm?, you can't play Counterstrike. You run a Starcraft cheat? you can't instant message.
The exclusions would have to be customizable, you wouldn't want to block someone with a worm from downloading a virus remover, or otherwise seeking assistance, but they don't need to play an online game before fixing it.
which ultimately means MS can't include IE in the operating system
My copy of Mac OS X includes both Safari and IE.
My copy of Mac OS 9 includes Netscape and IE.
If Apple can manage to figure out how to provide a choice of web browsers without excluding IE *or* excluding an HTML rendering engine that other applications can use, why do you imagine that Microsoft can't do the same?
This is no different from mandating that the GUI be usable by disabled users, or any other requirement. Arguing that software is somehow special and should be immune to regulation is like arguing that the government has no right to mandate safety guards on power tools or standard electrical connectors in the house. There are people who will happily argue these things, that the market can be allowed to manage things like safety equipment, minimum wage, pollution, all the way down to wheelchair ramps and the color of traffic lights. In practice that doesn't seem to work.
the case is totally irrelevant today. Too much time has passed. Nutscrape is almost gone
Microsoft is violating the consent decree in other ways today.
Microsoft is still engaging in anti-competitive behaviour.
Firefox is the linear descendent of Netscape, so how can Netscape be totally gone *and* IE losing market share to it?
Except it's not losing as much market share as people think, and it's only fear that's keeping it going. I see no reason to assume that Microsoft can't come up with a palliative that restores people's confidence in IE and reverse the trend... they've done wonders with fake security improvements before.
Renewed competition in the OS? Mac OS X and Linux between them have a smaller market share than Mac OS did when the trial started.
All the office suites that actually had a different design to Microsoft's have gone... and not because Office is a better design (it's not, oh god it's not) but because Microsoft pumped the upgrade treadmill and their monopoly leverage for all it was worth: the only survivors are basically clones so there's negligable extra consumer choice, and again there's fewer of them than when the trial started.
The only reason Microsoft is behaving the way it is, is because it knows that it can draw things out until people start saying stuff like "the case is totally irrelevant today" and they'll get away with it.