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Microsoft Critic Received $9.75m After Settlement
An anonymous reader writes "Just this month, Microsoft paid almost $20 million to the Computer and Communications Industry Association to make an anti-trust lawsuit go away.
FT.com has just revealed that *half* of that payment was pocketed by Ed Black, the president of CCIA and one of MS's fiercest opponents over antitrust issues. His payment was approved by the CCIA board, which includes Sun Microsystems, Yahoo and Oracle. And here's a quote from this article at Groklaw: Could this be why Nokia quit the CCIA right after the settlement was announced, saying matters were not handled "in the proper way"?"
Or is anyone else coming to the conclusion that any organisation named *IA or *AA is, in fact, corrupt and evil?
I guess this just goes to show that everyone has his price.
Granted, $9.75m is a nice price to have... don't think I'd be too quick to say no myself.
T.
I'm shocked, shocked!, to discover that an out-of-court settlements that consists of paying off your antagonists. Next you'll be telling me that Michael Jackson's settlements were somehow related to the $20 million that he forked out, rather than plaintiffs reaching mutual understanding.
Next week Slashdot will discuss : "The Pope : could he be a Catholic?"
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
I'll like to file an Anti-Trust case based on the large numbers of Anti-Trust cases =) I mean, there must be a lot more that we don't know about=)
and sometimes it makes the world go faster than it should.
.. what else is new.
Novell, Sun, Opera, etc, etc. They all line up for a nice little one-time piece of the cake.
It's just basically brazen corruption, but I'm sure the "Libertarian" weenies will have something insightful to say. "It will work out for the best in 150 years -- don't worry!"
how come i dint think of this before ?
Man, talk about a bargain. A lawsuit that could potentially bring Microsoft as we know it (one monolithic overreaching organisation) to an end and all it takes to make it go away is $20 million?
I bet the Microsoft people were popping champagne corks over that one. They would have thought nothing of spending $20 million defending themselves in court, so spending that much to make sure it never got that far was probably the easiest decision in the world.
As to where that $20 million went, well, that's another story. If half did go to Ed Black then it seems to me that he's got a lot of explaining to do.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Saw this in the FT this morning. Had a sweepstake on how long it would be before it appeared on
I pocketed what I'll just describe as a 'large one-digit sum'.
Heh heh heh... now to spend my wealth while industry as a whole suffers...
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
Just goes to show, they're all the same, it's a matter of picking out your piece of territory and seeing who can make the most noise. The more I see of capitalism, the more I'm glad that I'm content to work from home earning "enough to get by".
Since when is silencing one person's allegations worth 9 million dollars? Couldn't they just have arranged an "accident" for him?
stuff |
... and you gotta admit that he got a fairly good price!
i wonder if he's getting it in cash or a couple of SQL Server licences...
Firstly because of the settlement. They should have let it go to court, settlements imho always give the impression that it isn't to do about justice, but just about money.
Secondly because to say the least, it seems very dubious that Ed Black pockets half the money himself. It's not like he was damaged personally in the case to which the settlement applies, or was he?
This smell fishy and I can't blame Nokia for saying 'all nice and well, but we won't be part of this.'
---
"The chances of a demonic possession spreading are remote -- relax."
To be fair, they had to give Novell ~$500M to buy their silence, as I recall.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
Could this be an unwarranted inference on the part of the poster?
And OSDL and RedHat. Was the submitter trying to imply complicity between Sun and Microsoft by omitting those other members from that list?
I liked this link from the "Related Links" section of the article:
Best deals: The Courts
Whoa.
... considering the US presidency only costs about $100 mil
$20 mil for legal immunity sounds about right.
Interestingly, Nokia is a Scandinavian country - and these countries tend to have strong anti-corruption laws (especially Finland) - corruption is regarded as highly unethical and unacceptable from a social POV. If this act had been committed by Fins, or in Finland I imagine people from both sides would be doing jail time by now...
Everything obout this stinks!
Where can I go and get a degree in being a corporate board member or a CEO?
They seem to be low skill, high pay jobs. And if you get fired, you get a firing bonus in the millions.
bankrolling re-election: priceless.
what a joke - their buying all these people in the industry -
they are nothing but mafia that the government refuses to do anything about because they are getting paid off too.
I hope all these people can sleep at night.
You are damn right! They would be doing jailtime! In fact Finland has Zero percent corruption. In Finland there is less corruption than in any other country in world. Here's the recent study about that:
Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index 2004
MOD UP!! This is interesting and I enjoyed seeing how Finland beated up USIANS!!
That would be how these things are usually organised.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
How can any judge in the EU or anywhere else look at this as anything but a bribe? I have a hard time imaging a judge who they tell that MS is so much better now will take them seriously now that this little gem is out.
HTTP/1.1 400
It has to be said:
1. Get to head of industry body
2. Criticise Microsoft
3. ????
4. Profit!
Although, I guess the ???? bit has been worked out now.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
funny how this happens right before the thanksgiving holiday in the US -
microsoft is making the software industry just like the drug industry -
a corrupt,greedy, and disfunctional industry.
Worse with each payment the price goes up. If you got a complaint against MS you are hardly going to settle for a handshake are you? They paid in the past so you want your share.
There is a reason IBM didn't just settle with SCO. If they did every lawyer in the world would have send them a complaint.
Sure MS is buying itself temporary peace but this is resulting in two long term effects.
First anybody else who has the slightest case will want their millions.
But second is a far more damaging effect. If you read the FT story it is very clear that the journalist is calling this a clear case of bribery. Now why would you bribe a witness unless the witness has really seen something? I give it a couple more years before most of the real press will have decided that yes MS is a clearly corrupt company. This will cast suspicion on all their dealings.
Surely any good journalist will then start to question every time MS gets a contract or makes a lawsuit go away who has been paid off for how much?
If I were a reporter at the FT looking for a story I would do some investigation into who received what sums of money for the recent NHS deal or the US army deal. The last one is especially good. The US army has said that windows wasn't good enough for their future soldier project but it is good enough for the desktop of soldiers? Wheres the money!
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
We can predict that something is evil if it's an american or an industrial association.
*mock surprise*
Went to their web site and saw this. "CCIA today asked Congress to exempt foreign nationals holding advanced degrees from US Universities from H-1B visa quotas. The letter notes that without these exemptions, these individuals will work overseas for our nation's competition and leave a gaping hole in the workforce of domestic companies. Because the US has not produced enough advanced degrees in math, science and engineering companies must look abroad for workers. The requested exemption allows US firms to maintain their technological edge." I have friends and myself have computer science/math degrees and have programmed in c/c++ and prefer to be a system admin - but I have been turned down by positions because I have been told I am asking too much money. this is the reason why they want these people they will work for basically no salary - they just want to live over here because our country actually has running water and toilets. so basically this is a bunch of crap!!!
Nokia's a Finnish company, and I'd like to think it reflects on their corporate culture. Finland's known for the relative lack of gravy. Transparency.org seems to think so anyway.
2004
2003
2002
2001
2000
I'm sorry if I haven't offended anyone
Hell. All you have to do is sign a deal with the Devil.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Sue MS for antitrust violations and wait for the settlement.
You know, this might be the way to go for them. I certainly would stop complaining about Microsoft if they gave me $9.75M. Hell, I'd quit bitching for just $2M! Instead of spending so much money on advertising, they should just give it directly to people who hate them.
Cases which use our justice system, using up taxes, should not merely be settled without a fee. If they're not going to produce a precedent, they should compensate the government at least a fraction of their costs as part of the settlement price. There's no reason why taxpayers like me should be subsidizing their competition without getting a piece of the action.
--
make install -not war
I pointed this out a long time ago when Lindows (now Linspire) began suing Microsoft on anti-trust grounds, with proceeds from the suit to be paid to Windows-users in the form of copies of Lindows.
Anti-Microsoft zealots gladly look the other way whem MS takes the hit, whether its wrong or right. Now that the big money is in the game, and people are suing for fun and profit, and it's *not* a Linux company getting the green, suddenly everyone is worried. pshaw!
I don't blame him. Fuck, if I got offered $9.75m to stop bitching about Microsoft, I'd take Gates' arm off at the elbow!
D.
This is the group that published the anti-Microsoft paper that got Dan Geer fired from @stake.
0 29 252&tid=109&tid=172
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/09/26/
the bbc is reporting that "A new round has opened in the European Commission anti-trust battle against Microsoft as the judge hearing its appeal called for a closed meeting. The meeting - to be held on Thursday - follows US-based Novell and the Computer and Communications Industry Association dropping out of the case. "
Wonder if this means the EU Anti-trust case will fail apart, or, like the US slowly fade into nothing
Jaj
Makes you wonder about the people behind the anti-trust lawsuits when you find out that the cause they're so firmly behind can be bought out so easily. Also makes you wonder if it's as big a deal as these people are potentially inflating it to be in some cases.
Of course, 9.5 million is enough to make anybody think twice.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
And the woman in question was Lady Astor.
They had two other famous exchanges (and strangely always seemed to find themselves next to each other at dinner):
Winston Churchill: Madam, you are ugly.
Lady Astor: And you, Winston, are drunk.
Winston Churchill: Ah yes, but in the morning I shall be sober.
&
Lady Astor: If you were my husband Winston, I should poison your soup.
Winston Churchill: And if you were my wife, I'd drink it.
--- My dad's political betting
Like a big meta-anti-trust case; or maybe just meta-trust.
I like it. Well, I've never met a meta-anti-trust I didn't like, so can we make it a Class Action Meta Anti Trust (CAMET) lawsuit and get meta rich?
I see potential here.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Microsoft paying out that much is like me getting a $50 speeding ticket. Its simply not going to make a difference. For a company that makes that much money it has to be at least in the hundreds of millions.
What keeps someone from just forming a new association and repeating the process?
Hey, i patent that!
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
Oh, so you're from Glasgow?
Flash is the Herpes of the Internet.
your.opinion >
eblack@ccianet.org
Saying Apple is better than MS is like saying Botulism is better than rabies.
...where do I sign up?
Sure, but they have a what, 40 Billion dollar war chest? File under petty change.
Surprisingly, Ed Black had no interest in Microsoft's burying, and even grabbing control, of one of their few remaining high-profile competitors.
Or perhaps it wasn't surprising at all. It sometimes feels that almost everyone involved with US corporate world is somehow corrupt and only looking to stuff their own bank accounts.
But at least Ed Black can now sleep well on his greenback-stuffed mattress.
Back to sleep America, normal service has resumed and the corporate watchmen are back on the corporate bankroll...
The annoying but harmless Quis custodiet ipsos custodes issue has been taken care of.
It should be noted that the settlement terms have not been released. We don't know what promises Ed Black has made to Microsoft, or vice-versa.
Perhaps Mr. Black has promised to sing Microsoft's sweet praises, but that need not be the case. Microsoft may have silenced a critic...or simply bankrolled an opponent. At this point, we don't know.
"Hold on a minute, Gillian Anderson and I have to open another magnum of Dom Perignon to help us wash down the beluga caviar grits we just finished licking outa Natalie Portman's belly button", he explained.
Copy the details of the original lawsuit, file it under your *AA association's name, then wait for Microsoft to make you an offer you can't refuse. Hey, if everyone did that, Microsoft would either go broke paying people off, or be forced to go to trial and lose! Cool!
-- Ed Carp, N7EKG erc@pobox.com PGP KeyID: 0x0BD32C9B What I'm up to: http://intuitives.mine.nu
Why is it that nowadays the media isn't capable of calling a spade a spade anymore? Here we got a case where the position of the writer is quite obvious, and he describes the case is a matter that leaves any thinking person no other conclusion than to assume bribery. But the writer (or at least his editor) just can't dare to actually say the word out loud. If they'd be talking about elephants we'd be hearing somthing like "Ah, yes. We got a big, gray animal here, with four huge round legs, and two flappy ears, and in the front there's a long, flexible trunk...", but they'd never dare to actually use the 'E'-word. I thought this incapability of calling things by it's name were just limited to election issues (and certain presidents' behaviours), but it seems that in general we can't expect the media to call things by it's proper names anymore.
I've been a vocal critic of Microsoft for a lot longer than this guy! Where's my payoff!?!!?!
-- Gargonia
Never play leapfrog with a unicorn.
So, now that Microsoft is a member, CCIA is working for them to further their member's business interests. Barrier-free competition means Microsoft shouldn't have to deal with annoying lawsuits.
IMHO, the announcement says the CCIA is now Microsoft's bitch.
1) Criticize Microsoft.
2) Criticize Microsoft some more.
3) Profit!
This is definitely where Microsoft has the advantage over open source - a single proprietary source to criticize!
More importantly, it is deservedly so!
Mod this troll, mod this flamebait. Is that all you got, huh? Are you nuts? Come at me!
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
i hate bill gates.
now sue me. i need my xmas money.
why take the money? in the long run wouldn't Black be better off if Microsoft dropped, then he could pick up some of the slack...
CCIA $10M, Novell half a billon, RealNetworks, only ones left...
Ballmer wanted to get all lawsuits out of the way. The best way to do that was pay off everyone. Ballmer laid out his top 10 plans in order of importance.
1. Pay off all litigants.
2. Buy a new shirt, all the my others have pit stains.
3. Investigate what antiperspirant is
4. Attend next class of the Howard Dean speech school
5. Hostile take-over of The Hair Club for men for their technology.
6. Steal Apples ideas, rebrand as Microsofts.
7. Portray everyone who uses a non-microsoft MP3 player as thieves. Portray Windows users as honest folk...ignore questions about product activation that contacts our servers.
8. Buy another shirt, this one is pit stained already.
9. Say I saw linux developers dancing with the devil in the pale moonlight.
10. Fix security in Windows, if we can.
If they're not going to produce a precedent, they should compensate the government at least a fraction of their costs as part of the settlement price.
First: civil suits are not free. You have to pay a filing fee to even get into court in a civil case.
Second: settlements are negotiated by the parties' attorneys, not the courts. Why should the parties pay the courts a fee for settling their dispute out of court - especially since they just spared the court the burden of handling a full-blown litigation?
The filing fee doesn't defray the costs to the state (thereby the people) of the suit, except nominally. Nor should it - the Judicial Branch budget is an investment in *justice*. When the parties conclude a civil suit with a judicial decision, the state profits in the precedent, which it uses for more justice in the future. When they don't, they state's return on investment is minimal. No justice need be served by a settlement, nor is any available to the state, as settlements are not precedential. By the time these cases reach a settlement, the costs to the people have long ago dwarfed the filing fee, so it's a net loss in dollars, with no gain whatsoever in justice.
Litigants which settle are using the court as a negotiating tool. That's acceptable, so long as they pay their fair share. Otherwise, taxpayers like me are subsidizing their negotiation budgets - and that's unjust.
--
make install -not war
Two fucking jews just cover each other's ases and nothing else to this story.
http://www.jewwatch.com
Since everyone here's assuming this is horrible let me play devils advocate and say that if Ed spends -half- the money microsoft gave him on richly deserved yachts and the other half on funding future suits against Microsoft... this could be an excellent model for helping to fund legal action against MS.
You don't think they will -stop- giving people reasons to sue do you? (If they did suddenly go all lilly white and pure this would also be a positive outcome). I don't know the details of the suit so I'm not saying they did the right thing in this case. But I have a certain skepticism when everyone jumps on the same bandwagon like we're seeing in these comments. When that happens there's more risk of the wheels coming off IMHO.
to who? you? mr. ed has to 'splain nuthin to no one.
$500 million here, $20 million there, eventually it can add up to real money.
For a mere $2m I would promise never to say anything bad about Microsoft again. How about it, Bill?
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
...is AIDS activitst and animal rights activist. Ladies and Gentlemen, the subject is "AIDS drug testing". Discuss.
I find the debate that ensues made all the more hilarious as the two groups generally agree on about 99% of issues.
As to where that $20 million went, well, that's another story. If half did go to Ed Black then it seems to me that he's got a lot of explaining to do.
He don't got to do nothing. "You want an explanation? Well, tough. Jeeves, show the gentleman out."
Why does it seem that groups with "Industry" in them are bad news for the consumer/public? This group represents big business and their issues and to be surprised that they would take a payoff, if thats what they did, shouldnt surprise you. They support H1-B visas as well. Although emotions on these visas may be mixed, they certainly benefit the corporations first and the public second - anyone who thinks differently should perhaps read "The Grapes of Wrath". No big surprises here for me.
I was crazy back when being crazy really meant something. (Charles Manson)
Fuk yeah!!!
Theoretically, we have one guy making a mountain out of a molehill. Practically, we have two women with enough sense to consider making a lot of money doing something trivial.
Women always know who the mother is, men are never sure who the father is. And this makes sex a matter of different perspectives! Women have always been ready, willing and able. Men have invented ways to control them, including calling them "whores".
According to the transparency international web site, the USA is at 7.5 while Canada is at 8.5 (the most honest was Finland at 9.7).
- 211734.h tml
The difference between Canada and the USA is 1.0 which probably means Bush got re-elected using Microsoft's money and Kerry failed to get elected despite Microsoft's donations. Here is a link:
"Microsoft used soft money to pour more than $2.7 million into the political process in the 2002 election cycle"
http://marketwatch-cnet.com.com/2100-1001
"individual Microsoft employees gave a total of $1.13 million dollars in this election cycle, an amount rivaling Microsoft"
So I rest my case. The discrepancy between Canada and the US is due to George Bush and Microsoft Alone. For more info on how I reached the conclusion, see the warning about slashdot polls. (-;
In any case, I'm buying a Nokia at Xmas. NOT an Xbox.
Microsoft is pure dog-ma. FreeBSD is pure cat-ma.
And what's Novell doing with that $500M? Delightfully, they're using it to sue Microsoft again, on some other grounds.
Well that's kinda scary.
- Voice of Ambience -
You know which cell phone to select when You're buying a new one.
I hope Nokia stays strong in its view against MS.
I'm wondering if one association makes never-sue-deal in a anti-trust case it can only speak for itself. Anyone else should now also be entitled to sue MS for the same reason.
Is he the brother of Joe Black ?
http://www.meetjoeblack.com/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119643/
"...Death itself enters his home and his life, personified in a man's body: Joe Black has arrived. His intention was to take Bill with him, but accidentally, Joe's former host and Bills beautiful daughter Susan have already met. "(www.imdb.com)
Is Bill Gates daughter's (Jennifer) other name Susan ?
Two things I'd like to see examined more carefully are
a) something that looks suspiciously like the state sponsoring a private company's ad campaign and
b) something that looks like a potential conflict of interest by putting an MS exec in charge of the country's information. He claims to be cutting ties with MS, but like any politician talk is cheap and only actions count. Highly qualified and experienced candidates were pushed aside to put him in that post.