[IP] Antitrust and MS

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Dan Gillmor <dan@gillmor.com>
Date: July 6, 2006 4:06:23 PM EDT
To: Dave Farber <dave@farber.net>
Subject: Re: [IP] Digest 1.1068 for ip

> The last time private firms lobbied the (Clinton) DoJ to institute an
> antitrust case was when Sun and Netscape whined about Microsoft; I
> suspect the DoJ folks don't see that as a great success, and are
> maybe not so likely to be the industry's cat's paw again.

Wow, what revisonism...

The U.S. won the case overwhelmingly at trial and in the appeals court.
Although the appeals court did toss out the breakup of the company, it
unanimously agreed there had been serious and repeated lawbreaking by
Microsoft. Then the Bush Justice Department decided to give Microsoft an
essentially free ride, giving back almost everything it had won.

Most antitrust cases brought by DoJ have lots of input from industry
competitors. This one had more than most because Microsoft's  
violations cut
such a broad swath.




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