Slashdot Mirror
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"?"
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.
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."
Could this be an unwarranted inference on the part of the poster?
... 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...
Not all members of an organisation are board members. I do guess that OSDL and Red Hat are just as surprised about the details of the deal as you are.
extern warranty;
main()
{
(void)warranty;
}
Please refer to "dictionary" or "the faintest knowledge of economics" before posting in the future.
n d-display-their-lack-of-education sense, but it is most certainly unrelated to any correct definitions of capitalism, free markets and so on.
That may be "capitalism" in the ignorant-liberal-twats-who-love-to-misuse-words-a
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
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
How old are you? You seem to be ignorant of the fact that this kind of behaviour has been going on with MSFT longer then the Internet has been public. The real press, as you so delicately put it, will do nothing. They can't sell copies based on some geeky shit like this. It's Mad Cow and Presidential blowjobs that sell papers.
Many people that I talk to are in strict denial about all of this MSFT Monopoly thing. They either dismiss it as Free Market and Capitalism at it's finest or simply can't cope with the idea of an alternative.
Microsoft is fucking huge! I don't think anyone really understands how much power that brings. Until you can find someone who will refuse a $250 million bribe you won't get anywhere. It's going to take some extremely ethical people to turn Microsoft around. And I don't see them in business or politics.
Except Novell, Sun, Opera all have legitimate cases against Microsoft. Of course they expect they're entitled to compensation - if a monopoly fucked you over, stole / usurped your tech, denied you a market, scared off your customers, I bet you would too.
Opera are smaller, but I bet Novell, Sun, AOL and probably Real could all demonstrate massive losses in the hundreds of millions or even billions due to anti-competitive behaviour at one time or another by MS. Hence the reason MS is so quick to settle now - it has a lot of money to make these things go away before they reach trial.
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!
Couldn't they just have arranged an "accident" for him?
They did - hence the news reports... $20M to silence a critic is a good deal, but to discredit them as well it's a bargain.
"Never try to extort more than it costs to have you killed."
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.
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.