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Justice Dept. Defends Microsoft Against Google
Frosty Piss writes "The Seattle PI reports that Google has complained to US antitrust officials about the hard-drive searching tool built into Windows Vista, saying that it stymies Google's similar search program. The complaint, lodged late last year, was revealed Saturday by The New York Times in a story about the Bush administration's handling of Microsoft antitrust issues. The real story, though, is not the Google complaint itself, but how the Justice Department is failing to enforce the Microsoft anti-trust decree. According to the story, Thomas Barnett, the assistant U.S. attorney general in charge of antitrust issues, sent a memo last month to state attorneys general across the nation, seeking to persuade them to reject Google's complaint."
So Google is demanding that Microsoft remove Vista's desktop search feature, a feature that other OSes already ship? If other OSes can ship it then so can Microsoft. Hell, if I'd been in charge of Microsoft, I would've been bundling Windows Desktop Search with XP for years now.
Or worse yet, Google is demanding that Microsoft bundle Google's crapware?
To hell with Google. This is the same company that made a deal with Apple to have Safari's web search box locked into Google so you can't change the default or even add secondary search providers (as if that doesn't harm competing search engines on the Mac platform), and has made deals with numerous software companies to install Google toolbar and/or desktop when installing a software package, with the option to install Google's wares pre-checked (my mom has asked me multiple times why Google toolbar keeps reappearing on her computer) and they have the nerve to complain about an OS desktop search feature? (Not to mention that Google's desktop search sucks anyway.)
Oh, and those fools cited in the article are comparing this with the Netscape case? Well, last time I checked, Microsoft is still bundling IE and not Netscape, and is being allowed to do so. So if they want to make that comparison, go right ahead. OEM's can still bundle Google Desktop if they want, just as they can Netscape (Dell is already forcing Google Desktop down its users' throats).
Google has no real case here; maybe Microsoft will be forced to add Google's Desktop Search to the Set Program Access and Defaults control panel (that's what it's called on XP, I don't know what it's called in Vista); in other words, be forced to add bloat for the sake of the invincible Google (so invincible that they need to go whining to government every chance they get), but that's about it.
Seems strange that they'd hire someone from a law firm associated with Microsoft for the Justice Dept. and then put him in a position to comment on an MS case.
F.U. Google. Here's the thing. I don't want to have to install grep or kin on my computer. I don't want to install google's desktop search. Thanks for Gmail, I even like the themes for personal search pages. Get working on a web based quicken stomper, and a better picasa for v3. But stfu about your tool bar. Stfu about your desktop search. I'm glad some people want them, awesome for google awesome for the users. From me, as a friend, cram it. Don't make me dig out a computer structure and organization text which in it's necessary and glorious vagueness describes why Microsoft is right and they are wrong here.
On another note, Google has ordered all Open Source programmers in their employ to issue weekly "patches" that include disabling grep from all linux/BSD distros.
"Grep is an evil command, and as a company that will do no evil, we must have evil commands removed." said a Google spokesman, before returning to his weekend pasttime of clubbing baby seals.
I'm a dreamer, the world is my playpen. But hey, I'm a serious person, I can't dream all the time.
by doing a Google search.
Its cheeper to buy a congressman than to fix your business model.
Google saying we want it for the search to be able to be disabled is b/s. I hate it when programs do this to my files, I install VLC because it plays everything, but I only want to use it for my files that wmp can't play, I skip through the installation like anyone else and before I know it all my files are opening in the wrong bloody application and i have to go and change all my settings in a menu in a menu in a menu, which most users would not find.
The same thing will blatantly happen here, google will install this crap, you click through the install like usual and your windows search is gone. I DONT WANT YOU DECIDING TO STOP OTHER PROGRAMS RUNNING ON MY MACHINE. Software companies never understand this, they just walk into your system and shut down competing system like they have sort of right, bullshit. Windows doesn't let desktop search shut down, and good for them, its not like they are disabling other search engines, they just make sure you always have their software waiting for you. Google is getting more evil by the day and I'll have no part of it. The only way I would support this, is if you can disable the search engine in the control panel, not let programs disable, let YOU PHYSICALLY GO THERE AND CHOOSE TO DISABLE IT IF YOU ARE BOTHERED.
Google will keep pushing untill it gets the reputation of microsoft, will do a little good and people will embrace them because we want to like them, well I'm not gonna use any of their desktop/search bar/downloadable software at all.
You should really give linux a try mate. Programs won't pull that shit on you. Another benefit is that you get rid of all the "control centers", oh why must every piece of windows software install its own huge and bloated "center/agent" running in the tray?.
on the other hand, you're one of those chaps who can't standing reading more than 2 lines of text on the screen, perhaps you
wouldn't like linux.
Did anyone actually *read* the NY times article? *rolls eyes* this truly is a dazzlingly brilliant strategy for Microsoft. Legal problems with Big Gov? Insert your own people into the process ... then everything comes up smelling of roses!!!
Rule of the people by the people for the people? This is more like rule of the people by big govt for big govt.
Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious
All this shows it that Microsoft paid more for their politicians than Google did.
If you disable the indexing service it's by all means off or are you referring to the search box itself? It is not possible to remove the search box as far as I know, but if the index service is off it will only search the hard drive the old fashioned way (the Win95 way).
apt-get remove grep : Problem solved!
That's what they're complaining about. It can't be turned off/disabled to allow other competing products to do the same job.
A most misleading summary if there ever was one. Perhaps a button should be added to the site called "flog Zonk" that people can click when the summary is misleading. Then everytime enough people click it, Zonk gets flogged IRL in front of webcam for all slashdot to watch. Perhaps that'll make him learn. I actually kind of doubt it, but at least it will be entertaining.
I guess this must be a fake then
As any idiot can plainly see from this image, Google is completely full of shit. If only windows provided someway to handle this manually or automatically. I wonder if I were a super intelligent monkey with an electronic hat, would I be able to change the startup option from automatic to disable, or manual. No. It's entirely too difficult, even for a supermonkey.
the current powers that be in washington just proved microsoft is a government enforced oligarchy...
google's desktop seems to be a piece of crap spyware according to popular opinion but i will never know since i do not use ms windows...
..paranoid schizophrenic to be exact.
I was OK with Ballmer and McCain. I weathered the wiretapping and video
face recognitions. I had a glass of tea over the IRAQ war conspiracies.
If you mix Microsoft with the Bush administration I will commit MYSELF.
Friends,
google is getting evil by day & night and its about Time to Dump google...
... like CONSUMER CHOICE!
Consumers/buyers are the ones with the loudest voice, they are the ones the politicians are really supposed to listen to, but if the information that allows the consumer to check it out for themselves and express their choice and concerns, is kept confidential and away from the consumer then there is one question to ask: Why?
What is it that Microsofts search engine is looking for that it is always running and why is the initial political response backing this?
Sidebar:
IS there some connection to spying on the public, which in this case would be the public even outside of the US?
If it is then I suspect, due to the easy to hypothisize of the 6 billion or so people in the world, it is some fraction of 1 percent that are in positions of warmongering and in general causing problems that otherwise do not exist. If it is for spying then that a lot of funding that could be better spent fixing real problems and removing the excuses of these major wrong doers.
End of sidebar:
Back to the MS search engine. Why is it always on?
you make excellent point. I totally agree. Its about time to DUMP Google.
The US government would rather one US company had a monopoly over the desktop than have a foreign company have more market share.
Even though Apple and Google are both also US companies that would thrive with a less powerful Microsoft.
A lot easier for the security services if the major player is a US company. Easier to get tools to bypass encryption etc..
An oh, so familiar strategy -- bundle a product similar to your competitor's, or, roll it into the kernel and then claim it can't be removed without damaging the kernel.
I think this establishment of a Government-Microsoft cabal is the last straw. Bush has definitely replaced Carter was the worst President of the modern era, if not in the history of the US.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/2007/06/08/
The final straw was the firing of nine US attorneys. They all seem to have been fired because they pissed off the Republicans. They were either investigating criminal wrongdoing by Republican politicians or they refused to bring (in their opinion unwarrented) action against Democrats. Although the President has the right to hire and fire the attorneys, it is corrupt for the government to interfere in ongoing investigations.
Google lying to push their desktop search with its close to the bone privacy policies or the way that most people so far have just taken whatever Google say about their major competitor as being fact. I know this is Slashdot but I would expect a supposedly clued up technical audience to be aware of how easy it is to disable windows search in Vista. Whats next? Will Google want Yahoo messenger disabled as well because it's a bit of a resource hog and that might impact on Google desktop search performance?
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
So what does google have to do with MS's search engine always running?
Even if google was evil, I'd still want to be able to turn off a search engine created by a proven anti-trust violator.
Wouldn't you?
Just because people claim google is evil is no reason to dismiss an act of a part that has been proven evil.
There must be a lot of MS supporters responding to the article, for who could miss the obviousnesss of this.
The party bringing out the fact that MS's search engine is always on is itself not an evil act. Unless you work for MS.
Without having read the article (sorry, i haven't had coffee yet), i have to say, I'm with Microsoft on this one. I can definetly see the anti-competitiveness of grafting a web browser or media player into the operating system, BUT for google to complain that the operating system includes a means of searching for files on the computer it's running on... that seems a bit babyish. Am I missing something? Should i read the original article?
You mean, like this? I'm all for it.
Like this? Sounds good, let's do it!
Wait, which is the lesser of two evils here? Google are privacy-destroying voyeurs, and Microsoft are omnivore IP hogs. I'd like to find the lesser of two evils. Except, when I look into it, all they're doing is advancing market share so their shareholders are happy and everyone from the CEO to the janitor goes home richer. So are the people behind Microsoft and Google the evil? Or is it the system?
Why can't we admit that capitalism and good design are oppositional forces, and that we the people through our greed defeat ourselves?
Anti-Globalism
I know they don't provide an indexer for osx, but the indexer in osx was conceived after ms's vista (longhorn i suppose)'s i think google is way off base to begin with, and not saying anything about osx really cuts the legs out of the argument imho.
Because this story is a good example of why the current administration is under such political heat for the often repeated and horribly mislabled "firing of Attorneys General."
It had only a little to do with the fact that the Administration couldn't come up with a consistent story. It had nothing to do with firings.
The current administration uses the office of the Attorney General as another way to pay back campaign contributors and intentionally alter the course of close district elections where Republicans aren't the clear leader. They also altered the rules such that over 400 people from the administration can communicate with the Justice Department regarding their work. (Versus the four that were allowed to do the same thing in the previous administration)
While there is still good reason to dislike Microsoft, the last appearance of any sense of Rule of Law as gone quietly into history. There is no power balancing provided by the Attorney General. The fox is now guarding the hen house. Microsoft is mere plankton compared to what the big fish have done to this country in about 20 years.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Aspartame.
We have been here before.
The other two increasingly mainstream OSes both implement this. Mac OS X and current versions of both GNOME and KDE versions of Ubuntu ship with desktop search-like applications. In purely practical terms, it seems unreasonable to suggest that Microsoft can't do the same just because a third party happens to be selling similar software for their OS. That said, I'm not familiar with the language of the antitrust ruling, and I am a bit alarmed by the partiality shown by the Department of Justice.
when the comment was posted under a wiretapping story a couple of days ago. http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=237723&cid=194 29139
What's the deal?
Got Trader Joe's? friendwich.com RSS feeds work now!
Which Stacker claimed Microsoft just stole their code and built it into Windows. If I remember correctly, Stacker showed where code was copied directly, won the case, collected damages from Microsoft, and sold their technology to Microsoft.
Microsoft always has been evil and now Google has turned evil as well. I'm switching away from using Google as a search engine. The are doing too much data mining, profiling, etc. I switched to Linux a long time ago.
it should have been -1 Redundant.
Different mods?
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
Capcha = affixing
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I'm not saying I necessarily agree with this. However, this does explain a lot.
Unless I am completely incorrect...
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
That's right... I went there...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
No such thing as a conflict of interest in the Bush administration. No bid contracts funneled to Cheney's former company and a lawyer that used to represent Microsoft put in charge of the Justice Department's anti-trust actions against Microsoft:
The official, Thomas O. Barnett, an assistant attorney general, had until 2004 been a top antitrust partner at the law firm that has represented Microsoft in several antitrust disputes.
At a minimum this guy should have recused himself from handling any DOJ matters related to Microsoft. But in Republican ethics there is no such thing as a conflict of interest and job qualifications are determined by party fund raising ability and attending Oral Roberts University.
Come on, let's hear you neocons start whining about how the Democrats do it, too. That seems to be your major justification for just about every corrupt practice you've supported the last 10 years. The Democrats rob banks, that means we can too! My neighbor smokes pot, that makes it okay for me! Instant self-justification: Add generous helping of hypocrisy, spin well and serve. You can justify anything.
Or fall back on the old standard: Blame Clinton. Which is it today?
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
It's also off the front page, off the Old Stories page, and when when I saw it and tried to post to it, comments were rejected (I forget the error). Just in case all record of it fades away, let's preserve this moment for posterity:
Why doesn't Google provide a simple way to turn off Vista's indexing service when Google Desktop is installed. Problem solved. And, as other posts note, it's not difficult to turn off the indexing, anyhow. Services->Windows Indexing (or whatever)-> Disable at Start Up.
it seems unreasonable to suggest that Microsoft can't do the same just because a third party happens to be selling similar software for their OS.
That would be unreasonable but it's not the complaint. As you point out, OSX, KDE and Gnome all have similar tools that don't bother Google. The complaint is that Vista has the usual traps for competitors. M$ has a long and court proved history of breaking their competitor's programs on Windoze. This old issue drove technically competent people off Windows years ago.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Google is talking about the built-in indexing on Vista, not the download MS search competitor or the windows service indexer that is on XP. Both of those can be turned off as a service. On Vista, there is some indexing stuff that cannot be turned off.
General, you are listening to a machine! Do the world a favor and don't act like one.
Historically, Microsoft has moved widely needed functions into their operating system and thereby eliminated the market for alternatives. When they did that for disk compression, Stacker went out of business. When they did it for TCP/IP networking, Trumpet Winsock disappeared. When they did it for email, Eudora stopped being a viable business. When they did it for browsers, Netscape Inc. went from a dot-com success to collapse.
Right now, they're doing it for anti-virus tools, which threatens McAfee, and desktop search, which threatens Google. They'll probably win on both of those, because there's little incentive to install a competitor's tools if those come bundled with the operating system, and because those tools can be tightly integrated with the operating system.
That was the first thing I disabled when I got vista, because I can wait the extra min or two for it look for it.
bNow if it really not disabled and it just slows the search down then I will be mad. But the process disappeared in taskmanager
Dan
Is it just me did anyone else notice that the moderators/posters seem like paid shills on this article? It just -feels- different reading the comments today, like 10,000 MS engineers realized that slashdot wasn't blocked by the corp firewall!
Bye!
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
If the US. Attorneys don't toe the Gates / Ballmer line - fire their poor little asses!
Wait... Has this been done bofore?
Well it would be if people paid to flog him.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Because Apple, unlike Microsoft, has never signed a consent decree with the DoJ agreeing that Windows constitutes a Monopoly in the OS marketplace and is therefore, unlike Microsoft, not bound by Anti-Trust laws which forbid it from leveraging its monopoly in the OS market by tying new products to the OS in order to enter other markets.
I realize that your DoJ has abandoned any pretenses of trying to enforce sane anti-monopoly laws, but do they not teach you people anything in schools?
Ah, yes more of the same from mactrhope:
Except once again you haven't read a single thing on the thread and have jumped straight to the only conclusion we could have expected from you - 'MS am bad, lol'.
No, I had to wade through all the lame excuses and "I'm with Microsoft Astroturf before I found a remotely reasonable question. If history is any guide, Googles claims are true. If what you are saying is true, tell me why Mac users don't have the same problem with OSX and GDS on the same box and why Linux search utilities also don't suck life. The point of M$'s sabotage is to say that GDS is slow and buggy, but that does not work when there are other implementations that work outside of M$'s reach. As usual, all you have is namecalling and nonsense.
This is a very old and court exposed M$ game. They break a program then flood the lists with bullshit. When you see through it once you never listen to it again.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
The problem, in all of those cases, was that M$ sabotaged the competitor from the OS. They then blame the competitor for the problem. This is a very old trick that they play again and again. The end result for the user is a platform full of intentional bugs and devoid of real competition or choice.
Your list of driven off competitors is something M$ should be ashamed of. They have never managed to match, let alone better, the program from the competitors they have destroyed this way.
The Google fight is one they are going to lose. It's not just search, which is a tool only M$ Windoze users really need, it's web search, YouTube, Google applications that M$ is unable to compete with. Given the choice between M$ and the world, users are increasingly choosing the world - GNU/Linux, Mac anything but M$.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
I recently purchased two system from Dell - a laptop and a workstation. Both had Google Desktop pre-installed and operational. I just find the whole thing ironic....
-CF
From the article: Microsoft spokesman Evans said no one has specifically asked the company to create a new way to turn off Windows Vista's desktop search program. He noted that Microsoft designed the program's indexer to scale back its activities when other programs are active on a computer, so that it doesn't cause the type of system drag that Google is reportedly citing.
"We don't think this is an issue, and we specifically designed it to make sure it wasn't an issue," Evans said. So Microsoft are in fact saying that there is no issue with GDS because Windows Indexing changes behaviour to ensure other programs are given priority over it, including GDS. All that is in the article, so I assume you haven't read it. Not only that but Google haven't even bothered to request that Microsoft change the service's behaviour, instead crying "antitrust" without making any move to solve the problem with them.
Regarding OSX and Spotlight, GDS actually uses extensions of Spotlight to achieve some of it's indexing, so that's a fairly simple reason why they're not complaining. They don't do this with Windows Indexing because they can't - however, as I've stated before, Windows Indexing doesn't interfere one iota with what GDS does, so it's completely irrelevant. The fact that Linux's indexing does or does not 'suck life' (what does that even mean?) is also completely irrelevant. There is no GDS on Linux.
I did enjoy you accusing me of namecalling. The irony is palpable.
"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." - Tolkien
let's see I won't repeat what every one else has said about how wrong the first post is Let's see google stuff is spyware eh well spyware is Spyware is computer software that collects personal information about users without their informed consent. hmm first off google desktop does not collect information period if you ever noticed none of your files are sent to google unless you activate the search across computers which is off by default Google toolbar hmm does not collect statistics unless on you activate pagerank or if you activate the send usage statistics option both off by default so is google stuff spyware verdict: no Now Microsoft was going to be split under clinton like at&t or whatever the parent company was but now nothing is happening Hmmmm and google is evil sure microsoft is totally innocent sure... Not!!!!!!!! Come on people aren't nerds supposed to think logically!!!!
Your admissions mostly make my point, thanks.
So Microsoft are in fact saying that there is no issue with GDS ...
Really? No argument there. That's what they always do.
Regarding OSX and Spotlight, GDS actually uses extensions of Spotlight to achieve some of it's indexing, so that's a fairly simple reason why they're not complaining. They don't do this with Windows Indexing because they can't ... The fact that Linux's indexing does or does not 'suck life' ... is also completely irrelevant.
So, everyone else gets the job done without stepping on each others toes but only M$ can do it on Vista. KDE and Gnome don't interfere with each other in the GNU/Linux world. GDS works great on OSX. Yet, for some reason only M$ works on Vista. This alone gives weight to Google's charges.
Besides common sense, we have reputation and history as a guide. Google knows it's platforms and has a sterling reputation. M$ has been proved guilty of sabotage in the DRDOS case above and Netscape. It's obvious you are on the M$ side, I just wonder why.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
As you didn't point out, OSX KDE and GNOME don't have 95% market share, which is why I'm sure Google couldn't care less about them. So in this case the "but X does Y as well" argument is irelevant.
Well, I think Microsoft ("M$") has a right to add whatever they want to their operating system ("Windoze"), as long as they don't actually break anything, as Macthorpe and many other people here pointed out, though of course it's easier for you to just say they're all employed by Microsoft, as usual.
As to actually breaking competitor's applications, you've tried that FUD before. Didn't go well then, either. OTOH, if you actually have some proof now, I'm sure we'd all love to hear it.
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
It's things like these among many others that will start chipping away at Google's "sterling reputation" and reveal them as what they are: a corporation with shareholders.
I won't contest the DR-DOS issue at all, and I think it was stupid of Microsoft to try that. However, that happened more than fifteen years ago, and involved detection code in a beta version that never made it to production. Why don't you read up on the actual facts:
Though DR-DOS was almost 100% binary compatible with applications written for MS-DOS, Microsoft nevertheless expended considerable effort in attempts to break compatibility. In one example, they inserted code into the beta version of Windows 3.1 to return a non-fatal error message if it detected a non-Microsoft DOS. With the detection code disabled (or if the user canceled the error message), Windows ran perfectly under DR-DOS. This code was removed from final release of Windows 3.1 and all subsequent versions, however.
Emphasis in bold above is mine. How much longer are you going to complain about code in a beta version of Windows that never shipped?
The Netscape issue was certainly not a case of "sabotage", other than Netscape sabotaging themselves. It's disingenous to trot out the same bullshit time and time again to make your points. Bruce Perens once claimed ESR wanted to kill him, but I don't use that every day to claim people associated with the free software movement are schizo paranoids. The reality is that outside of DR-DOS with the caveats I pointed out, you have exactly nothing other than FUD and imaginative inferences.
It's obvious your technical preferences serve as your religion, we just wonder why.
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
It never was about "justice". Just look at it's behavior concerning US torture, its behavior about the firing of US attorneys, etc., ad nauseum.
You might as well hand it over to the Mafia and let them run it. At least they'd be efficient about it.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
The entire first page of posts is one repetitive list:
Moron 1: Google didn't say that - they said allow it to be turned off.
Moron 2: You CAN turn it off.
Moron 3: Google didn't say that - they said allow it to be turned off.
Moron 4: You CAN turn it off.
Moron 5: Google didn't say that - they said allow it to be turned off.
Moron 6: You CAN turn it off.
Moron 7: Google didn't say that - they said allow it to be turned off.
Moron 8: You CAN turn it off.
Moron 9: Google didn't say that - they said allow it to be turned off.
Moron 10: You CAN turn it off.
Moron 11: Google didn't say that - they said allow it to be turned off.
Moron 12: You CAN turn it off.
Moron 12: Google didn't say that - they said allow it to be turned off.
Moron 14: You CAN turn it off.
Moron 15: Google didn't say that - they said allow it to be turned off.
Moron 16: You CAN turn it off.
There's your whole first page...
Morons...
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
KDE and GNOME are never running at the same time, so how would it be possible to get them into a position where they could interfere with each other or not?
Of course you can run them both at the same time. The obvious way is to use either Gnome or KDE's "switch user" feature to start another display manager and log in and use the other system on a different virtual terminal. A less obvious way to do the same thing is to just start the different processes. I don't anticipate any more trouble with this than I had trouble running multiple older versions of the same softare via X forwarding from a 400 MHz machine. More modern hardware will do even better. Free software just works.
GDS does not work well on Vista. You can attribute it to malice, as the technically competent Google people did, or incompetence as you would. Either way, Vista is a loser.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
"Thomas Barnett, the assistant U.S. attorney general in charge of antitrust issues, sent a memo last month to state attorneys general across the nation, seeking to persuade them to reject Google's complaint."
How is sending this memo not a crime?
Why do Google and the Justice Department control what Microsoft does with their product? Isn't it theirs?
Stupidity is like nuclear power, it can be used for good or evil. And you don't want to get any on you.
Can you tell me how Google would gain market share by making up a problem? They did not want to report the problem to anyone but the Federal DOJ. We only know about it because the former M$ lawyer now in charge of the DOJ took the unusual step of telling State Governments not to persue the matter and one or two of them spilled the beans.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
If you're enough of a slut, everyone's your friend.
Have gnu, will travel.
Shame on the OP and whoever modded that up as funny. It was OT and suicide is never funny.
from NIMH's Suicide in the US Statistics Page
Suicide is a major, preventable public health problem. In 2004, it was the eleventh leading cause of death in the U.S., accounting for 32,439 deaths. The overall rate was 10.9 suicide deaths per 100,000 people. An estimated eight to 25 attempted suicides occur per every suicide death.
Mod me down for pointing this out. Screw
~WBGG~ "And I'm so sad like a good book I can't put this Day Back a sorta fairytale with you" ~Tori Amos
More here.
Do not reward people who game the system by using multiple accounts.
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
Okay wow, I'm not doubting you at all, but to answer your first question. I'm not sure I want to keep following this trail at the time. I'm still in treatment for PTSD because someone wanted to "erase" me "from the gene pool" and sent me a map from their house to mine. It included a picture of a gun collection too. All that just because I am an advocate for breaking down negative stereotypes of mental illness and I blogged on a website that I'm in treatment for unipolar depression. I never threatened anyone, nor have I ever been diagnosed by the 12 psychiatrists that have studied me a threat to myself or anyone else. Still, someone's fear was enough to get me more than one death threat.
In other words I believe in far some people will take their agendas based on greed, power, fear etc...
This lawsuit, the Paris debaucle and the MS anti-trust suits years back are much bigger than the result of the single suit in the article posted, or even the amount of money generated by the companies involved. The precidents they set, the way they end up making the US justice system look to Americans and the world are the real value. That along with corruption, the Abramoff's and "I cannot recall's" of the country's administrative branch is the real point, isn't it? Its not just some ridiculous sum of cash in some billionaire's pocket? Bloody hell I hope not.
~WBGG~ "And I'm so sad like a good book I can't put this Day Back a sorta fairytale with you" ~Tori Amos
Blame China.
twitter apparently does not like the troll moderations he's gotten in this thread so far, so he's switched to his sockpuppet account.
Do you have something usefull to say about integrated features, desktop search, Google, software at all? No one gives a shit about your personal hatred of Twitter, mod points and all of that.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Sure, I replied to you in this thread. You didn't notice? Of course by the contents of that thread one can safely say that you certainly do not.
By the way, I find it interesting that you didn't start your insults with a denial that this is one of your sockpuppet accounts. You've pretty much given up pretending, eh?
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
What incentive is there for Microsoft to spend money on R&D, to invent cool new features like "Windows Key, Type, Enter" and Instant Desktop Search (Yes, a Microsoft Invention AFAIK) if they have to end up bidding to include it in their own OS to someone who merely copied them? When making a decision, one must not only look at the direct impact of that decision, but the indirect ones. If Microsoft were forced into bidding on including it's own inventions, then their R&D department would be smart to do nothing but submarine patents on all improvements, which would be smarter than introducing an invention that they would be forced to bid billions of dollars on shipping, in order to include in their own operating system. I could see if Microsoft was trying to use it's desktop dominance to take over Google's Cash Cow, Internet Search, but Microsoft is only searching locally and soon across the LAN. (In 50 years when Windows gets a new file System.) I could see if Google was a freedom fighter for user's spending their hard earned cash on things like their Dell bid to get a Google install wizard in their for us which asks user's what provider they want to use, but they are not interested in doing this, rather stuffing their own wares down the throats of users who don't want them or don't know they have them. One more point I want to make. There are too many people trying to turn this into a political conversation when in fact it's a conversation about competition and user choice. At some point Microsoft should be able to keep improving it's operating system and if at some point they are caught doing things like slowing down Google's Search (I doubt it) they need smacked harder than the EU had nerve to do so as they should have learned their lesson by now. I'm sorry people, you can't fault a company who has worked closely with competitors and had this much over site in building their OS and then wait until they ship it and tell them to go back and redesign in. This is called over regulation, Google is no kitten, let the two of the duke it out, and we have no business doing anything but watching for low blows.
No wonder seeing as how the Justice department is busy tossing out everything they can get their hands on that isn't painted blue. An incredible irony that, seeing as how the JD busted MS wide-open for being a monopoly. They've got some 7-year, $500 million strategy to convert everything over to Microsoft.
I've already wrecked all your arguments once on this topic.
Don't make me do it again.
"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." - Tolkien
I, Jim-Bob Mirror Manufacture Inc, demand that GM stop the unfair process of installing their rear view mirrors on their entire line up so that my product: "Jim-Bob's ultimate rear view mirror" can compete fairly in this market!
This is completely bull crap. I have Google tool bar and I'm a huge fan of Google desktop search, I think it is by far the superior product. But to force another company to remove basic functionality from their system is just asinine. There is no need to remove the built in MS search because it in no way prevents you from using the Google search.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Okay, IE was a horrible and evil; an abuse of monopoly power to try to expand onto the internet from the desktop. And if they started bundling Office, I'd be right there with everyone else. But this is always something I thought was a bad part of Windows OSes (leaving aside the "What's a good part?" or "How many bad parts are there?" questions.) To me it's most equivalent to a large car company, say Ford, finally including CD/MP3/AM/FM radios instead of 8-tracks. Even if Ford was a monopoly, and it put out of business all the 3rd party radio resellers:
Bottom line, I cannot write my own file system except for on top of NTFS/FAT_32/FAT and have it run with Windows. There are many parts of the OS I don't use, some can be shut down, some replaced, and some neither. But I don't understand the problem.
Your ad here. Ask me how!