{"id":815,"date":"2001-11-12T10:18:20","date_gmt":"2001-11-12T15:18:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/?p=815"},"modified":"2001-11-12T10:18:20","modified_gmt":"2001-11-12T15:18:20","slug":"more_microoft_b","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2001\/11\/12\/more_microoft_b.html","title":{"rendered":"More Micro$oft buzz-buzz"},"content":{"rendered":"

Even one of M$’ supporters<\/a> in the trades finds the DoJ\/M$ agreement “embarrassing.”<\/p>\n

As someone generally considered to have been in Microsoft’s corner throughout the three years of this court battle, I find the proposed settlement more than a little embarrassing. If I didn’t like Judge Jackson’s break-up ruling, I like the proposed settlement only a little more. You nuke Netscape and abuse monopoly power and then lie about it in federal court–and this is what happens to you?<\/p>\n

The author, ZDNet executive editor David Coursey, goes through his own laundry list of gaps and give-aways in the settlement agreement.<\/p>\n

A final observation: A year ago, in endorsing Al Gore’s presidential candidacy, I warned my Republican friends that a vote for Bush was a vote for Microsoft. And while Attorney General John Ashcroft denies White House complicity, can there be any doubt the settlement would be vastly different if Democrats were in charge?<\/p>\n

The irony here was that the Bush White House was more than happy to rattle sabers at the pharmaceutical industry in order to get a plentiful supply of cheap Cipro. Can you imagine Ashcroft threatening to ignore the patent\/copyright protection that M$ has on its products? Me, neither. Not unless there were a lot more political heat about it.<\/p>\n

Oh, that Ashcroft statement? Here it is<\/a>, on 2 November:<\/p>\n

The agreement “will put an end to Microsoft’s unlawful conduct and bring effective relief to the marketplace and ensure that consumers will have more choices in meeting their needs of computing and working with their computers,” he told a news conference.
\nAsked if the agreement constituted “selling out” by the government, Ashcroft replied, “That’s totally false.” He called it “a strong, historic settlement.”
\n[…] “A competitive software industry is vital to our economy, and effective antitrust enforcement is crucial to preserving competition in the constantly changing hi-tech arena,” Ashcroft said.<\/p>\n

Given Ashcroft’s recent Orwellian assault on Constitutional due process, it’s not surprising that he might have Orwellian definitions for words like “competitive,” “effective,” and “enforcement.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Even one of M$’ supporters in the trades finds the DoJ\/M$ agreement “embarrassing.” As someone generally considered to have been in Microsoft’s corner throughout the three years of this court…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1473,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2001\/12\/31\/stop_in_the_nam.html","url_meta":{"origin":815,"position":0},"title":"Stop! In the name of Love!","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 31-Dec-01 3:47pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Micro$oft, caught completely off-guard by the dissenting states (sh'yeah, right), is begging for a four month delay in further hearings. Never mind that the next hearing is scheduled for mid-March,...","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1326,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/01\/24\/hey_this_is_kin.html","url_meta":{"origin":815,"position":1},"title":"Hey, this is kind of work-related","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 24-Jan-02 8:31am","format":false,"excerpt":"Under the Tunney Act, individuals may submit comments to federal courts about proposed settlements. Specifically, if you think Micro$oft is getting a free ride (with complementary peanuts) in the proposed...","rel":"","context":"In "Hi-Tech"","block_context":{"text":"Hi-Tech","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/hi-tech"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":129409,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/01\/08\/when-companies-can-hold-the-law-hostage.html","url_meta":{"origin":815,"position":2},"title":"When companies can hold the law hostage","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 8-Jan-16 1:48pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Investor State Dispute Settlements (ISDS) were designed to help protect corporate investments in third world nations that might be nationalized. The idea was to give such companies recourse to sue in an international court if a government did something that caused them financial harm.What;s happened since then, though, is corporations\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1558,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2001\/12\/11\/wouldnt_it_be_l.html","url_meta":{"origin":815,"position":3},"title":"Wouldn’t it be loverly?","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 11-Dec-01 3:37pm","format":false,"excerpt":"The nine demurring states in the Micro$oft anti-trust settlement have put together some intriguing proposals for a settlement. Intriguing enough that they're probably all non-starters, according to the summary in...","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":88,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/06\/16\/music_hark_2.html","url_meta":{"origin":815,"position":4},"title":"Music, hark!","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 16-Jun-03 9:08pm","format":false,"excerpt":"A judge has accepted the settlement in the CD price-fixing case. A judge has approved a settlement agreement in a music antitrust lawsuit that will result in more than 3.5...","rel":"","context":"In "Media Moguls"","block_context":{"text":"Media Moguls","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-moguls"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":869,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2001\/11\/08\/so_this_is_how.html","url_meta":{"origin":815,"position":5},"title":"So this is how you crack down on a monopolist","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 8-Nov-01 11:25am","format":false,"excerpt":"The Register has a number of articles on the Micro$oft\/Dept. of Justice \"settlement.\" The bottom line? Micro$oft is now in a stronger position than it was before, because it has...","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}