“Nearly a decade after the government began its landmark effort to break up Microsoft, the Bush administration has sharply changed course by repeatedly defending the company both in the United States and abroad against accusations of anticompetitive conduct, including the recent rejection of a complaint by Google,” Stephen Labaton reports for The New York Times.
“The retrenchment reflects a substantially different view of antitrust policy, as well as a recognition of major changes in the marketplace. The battlefront among technology companies has shifted from computer desktop software, a category that Microsoft dominates, to Internet search and Web-based software programs that allow users to bypass products made by Microsoft, the world’s largest software maker,” Labaton reports.
“In the most striking recent example of the policy shift, the top antitrust official at the Justice Department last month urged state prosecutors to reject a confidential antitrust complaint filed by Google that is tied to a consent decree that monitors Microsoft’s behavior. Google has accused Microsoft of designing its latest operating system, Vista, to discourage the use of Google’s desktop search program, lawyers involved in the case said,” Labaton reports. “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.”
“The memo illustrates the political transformation of Microsoft, as well as the shift in antitrust policy between officials appointed by President Bill Clinton and by President Bush,” Labaton reports. “Microsoft was saved from being split in half by a federal appeals court decision handed down early in the Bush administration. The ruling, in 2001, found that the company had repeatedly abused its monopoly power in the software business, but it reversed a lower court order sought by the Clinton administration to split up the company.”
“Google complained to federal and state prosecutors that consumers who try to use its search tool for computer hard drives on Vista were frustrated because Vista has a competing desktop search program that cannot be turned off. When the Google and Vista search programs are run simultaneously on a computer, their indexing programs slow the operating system considerably, Google contended. As a result, Google said that Vista violated Microsoft’s 2002 antitrust settlement, which prohibits Microsoft from designing operating systems that limit the choices of consumers,” Labaton reports.
Labaton reports,” Richard Blumenthal, the Connecticut attorney general, declined to talk about the substance of the complaint, or which company made it. But he said the memo from Mr. Barnett surprised him. ‘Eyebrows were raised by this letter in our group, as much by the substance and tone as by the past relationship the author had had with Microsoft,’ said Mr. Blumenthal, one of the few state prosecutors who has been involved in the case since its outset. ‘In concept, if not directly word for word, it is the Microsoft-Netscape situation,’ Mr. Blumenthal said. ‘The question is whether we’re seeing déjà vu all over again.'”
Much more in the full article here.
“Money changes everything.” – Cyndi Lauper
“The Bush economic record has been fairly good if you look at the numbers.”
i know over a dozen economists who disagree.
now if you look at the numbers for the rich, and see that get a lot richer, sure, great numbers for them.
…..not everyone is the top .5% in wealth though. by definition.
The Bush administration supported ENRON while they were price gouging the American people! Is anyone surprised by this news? They shouldn’t be. The Bush administration doesn’t give a rats ass about the American people, never have, never will.
Wow. MDN publishes something that presents the Bush admin in bad light. Must be a first.
MDN MW: ‘Indeed.’
PS. However, I don’t think the gummint’s tendency to lick MS’s behind depends on the party in power.
…and this is the same kind of stuff MS has done to thwart Quicktime on PC’s. They don’t play by the rules, because George Bush let’s ’em cheat.
That’s why this is reported on this site, Ronin. It’s related to Apple by the behavior.
@shen
General ecomonic indicators my friend. You know, inflation, unemployement, jobs, etc.
The rich are gonna get more rich no matter what you do shen. That’s why they are rich. They know how to make money. That’s their thing. That’s life.
He and his pro-corporation aka “monoploies” can fuck off. Apple is one of the most Democratic companies today, and that is why Apple users are so liberated
…..Microsoft hired an army of Washington lobbyists to try to get Congress to cut the budget of the Antitrust Division of the Justice Department while its case was before that department. …Thomas L. Friedman, NYTimes, June 2000.
This is just part of Vistas history wow. The wow didn’t start now …it started with the laying of Microsofts foundation. I think with people, in general, it stings a little something deep down in your soul to commit a truely unethical deed ..but who and what are you when you are pathologically unethical. It shames us as members of the human race to learn about the evil that men create. …and these men from Microsoft have given nothing to me but a heart filled with shame …and with a heavy heart I say to the Ballmers and the Gates ..fuck you all to pieces.
Bush showed the world he was dishonest from the beginning, and still people voted for him!
Will you just look at the CLUTTERFSCK MIND OF AL GORE!!
Three goddam 30″ displays and a TV on sucking up precious resorces and contibuting to global warming!!
What the fsck sort of enviromentalist is this jerk?
One who talks the talk but don’t walk the walk!!
He want’s you to ride a bicycle to work 30 minutes a day while he drives a gas guzzing SUV!!!
ALL POLITICIANS LIE AND CHANGE THEIR SPOTS IF IT MEANS LOST VOTES!!!
In February 2000, First Lady Hillary Clinton announced her candidacy for the U.S. Senate at the State University of New York at Purchase.
“I’ve heard parents’ concerns about the media’s influence on their children,” Hillary declared during her announcement speech. “How to protect our children from the influence of popular culture…”
Ironically, moments before she took the stage, a curious warm-up song, specially selected by the Hillary Campaign, had blasted over the gathered crowd — and on to viewers nationwide via C-SPAN and CNN:
“Your sister’s gone out, she’s on a date, and you just sit at home and masturbate… So you go to the village in your tie-dye jeans. And you stare at the junkies and the closet queens. It’s like some pornographic magazine, and you smile… So you play your albums and you smoke your pot. And you meet your girlfriend in the parking lot… Captain Jack will get you high tonight!”
Stupid
Mr Bush wants a monopoly too, monoply on power, the so called “unitary executive” . Judicial & legislative branches can just go to hell, and take the Consitution, and treaties, and laws with them too as far has he is concerned.
‘The question is whether we’re seeing déjà vu all over again.’
Ror those of us who don’t know any French, or what ‘déjà vu’ means in English, a translation of the above sentence follows…
‘The question is whether we’re seeing the same thing all over again, all over again.’
Mr Bush’s actions, words, and conduct over his term in office is proof of my prior posting.
google has desktop search on mac too, but I use spotlight, and i wouldnt bother with google just because its not spotlight and spotlight actually works great for me, however. can you even shut spotlight off?
This is the list of criminals Clinton pardoned just before leaving office.
Just imagine you are one of these victims of these criminals how would you feel?
http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pardonchartlst.htm
Just goes to show, every politician is as corrupt as Microsoft.
Never trust a politican and NEVER trust Microsoft.
this is a typical case of US politics protecting US companies because they ARE use companys.
If Microsoft was a European or any other country company I guarantee the US politicans would have gone ahead with breaking up Microsoft.
Such is power… the more people have the less they are prepared to let go or lose it.
Microsoft did the exact same tactics years ago with netscape.
And we all know the result of that.
Netscape had dominant market share of the web browser market.
Microsoft added IE to it’s OS and Netscapes share fell through the floor because they put code in the OS which almost crippled Netscape’s browser.
Exactly the same as what they are currently doing with google search.
Microsoft are all gangsters with the business morals of a whore.
Once the fat elephants leave, watch MS drown in its stinking sh1t.
If Gore runs in ’08, how scared would Microsoft be?
MDN Word: pressure as in “Let’s pressure Gore to run”
I don’t think so. Your rant is off topic, out of order, and puerile.
I don’t know if Google has a case here, but anything that’s good for Microsoft is bad for the world. And the friends of my enemies are not my friends. MDN MW: “Fall” off a chair.
Anyone read John Gruber of Daring Fireball? Looks like the leopard is about to change its spots. If that ain’t a hint, I don’t know what is. It’s one way you might reveal sensitive information without revealing it, if you know what I mean.
‘The question is whether we’re seeing déjà vu all over again.’
Roman: That’s just a reworking of a famous quote by Yogi Berra:
This is like déjà vu all over again.
http://www.rinkworks.com/said/yogiberra.shtml
Here’s another site for you:
http://www.ehow.com/buy_0_sense-humor.html
Evil Clintons…
I suppose that we’re both Evil Bush supporters if I state the following?
For EIGHT YEARS, CLINTON DID NOTHING with Microsoft, and only the LAWYERS involved PROFITED.
We’re living in dangerous times, when hatred rules the political landscape, and memories fade as quickly as they seemingly do.
HILLARY ALREADY DID 8 YEARS AND AL GORE IS A ALARMIST MORON, “Greenland is going to MELT, MELT I SAY!!
Yea after a few thousand years, the earth is going through a normal warming cycle that’s been going on for billions of years.
Al Gore “We must stop global warming, but I need my 3 – 30″ monitors and a TV on all the time! hahaha!”
WE NEED RUDY FOR PRESIDENT!!!
WE NEED RUDY FOR PRESIDENT!!!
WE NEED RUDY FOR PRESIDENT!!!
WE NEED RUDY FOR PRESIDENT!!!
WE NEED RUDY FOR PRESIDENT!!!
WE NEED RUDY FOR PRESIDENT!!!
WE NEED RUDY FOR PRESIDENT!!!
WE NEED RUDY FOR PRESIDENT!!!
WE NEED RUDY FOR PRESIDENT!!!
WE NEED RUDY FOR PRESIDENT!!!
WE NEED RUDY FOR PRESIDENT!!!
WE NEED RUDY FOR PRESIDENT!!!
WE NEED RUDY FOR PRESIDENT!!!
WE NEED RUDY FOR PRESIDENT!!!
WE NEED RUDY FOR PRESIDENT!!!
WE NEED RUDY FOR PRESIDENT!!!
WE NEED RUDY FOR PRESIDENT!!!
WE NEED RUDY FOR PRESIDENT!!!
WE NEED RUDY FOR PRESIDENT!!!
WE NEED RUDY FOR PRESIDENT!!!
WE NEED RUDY FOR PRESIDENT!!!
I turned GWB on to the Mac a while back. He just loves it.
Times…they are a changin’.