Why has convicted monopoly abuser Microsoft avoided scrutiny while openly supporting actions against Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google, and ducking rules being established in new U.S. antitrust bills?
Much to the exasperation of Apple Inc and Google parent Alphabet Inc, Microsoft and its president, Brad Smith, has publicly supported antitrust actions against them to gain a competitive advantage, sources close to both companies told MarketWatch. This prompted Apple’s vocal criticism of Microsoft during the Epic Games Inc.’s antitrust trial against the iPhone maker.
Now, insiders at Google, Amazon.com Inc., and Facebook Inc. are increasingly claiming Microsoft has hypocritically presented itself as the White Knight of tech, unsullied by the anticompetitive behavior of Big Tech. All four companies under federal investigation — Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, and Facebook — declined to speak on the record. But representatives from all four emphatically made it clear to MarketWatch that Microsoft is overplaying the antitrust card to make up ground in key technology areas such as mobile and gaming where Microsoft has lagged behind its rivals.
Microsoft’s diversionary tactics were called into question last week during markup of a package of sweeping antitrust bills designed to rein in Big Tech. Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., claimed on the House floor that an early draft of the bills that would have covered Microsoft was rewritten to have the company carved out. Original versions of the draft bills, he pointed out, defined “online platform” as including “operating systems” while the amended versions that were introduced and approved define “online platform” to only include “mobile operating systems.”
This would mean Windows is not a covered platform under the bills.
Rep. David Cicilline, chairman of the House subcommittee that oversees antitrust, emphatically denied any bill was changed to exclude Microsoft and that the company did not have access to early copies… Cicilline did not respond to email messages seeking additional comments on the changes, and on his political contributions of more than $5,000 from Microsoft President Brad Smith.
MacDailyNews Take: Follow the money.
Democrat David Cicilline is a corrupt R.I.* cretin who’s very likely on the take.
*of course, “corrupt R.I.” is tautological
Snitches.
Why? Thats what libturds do!!!
More reasons to thank libturds: https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/gas-prices-above-3-per-gallon-to-remain-elevated-all-summer
Thanks libturds, you are too fscking stupid to understand the damage you have done
I assume you are referring to the liberals who run Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates? They, and the other members of the OPEC cartel, are the ones keeping supplies low so that prices will rise as demand recovers from the pandemic.
Did Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates raise the prices of wood and all the other products too?
Didn’t you notice that things didn’t go to shit until Dementia Joe and the Ho took over? Is your head too far up your gullible ass to see?
It never ceases to amaze how the LYING LEFTISTS around here twist facts for nothing more than SELFISH personal or political party gain. TxUseless is the master manipulator and half truth specialist of the WOKE TEAM as we all have read. I’ll prove it, if anyone asks him to name just ONE ACCOMPLISHMENT by President Trump four years in office or ONE GOVERNMENT RECORD his policies established, be prepared for defensive deflection word salad grande!!!… 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
No deflection. The US under Trump lost a smaller proportion of its population from pandemic disease than under Woodrow Wilson. Of course, the Wilson Administration was also fighting World War I and did not have the experience of a prior pandemic in the modern era to learn from. Here is a comparison:
https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/hblog20210329.51293/full/
The conclusion: “ In 2020, by contrast, federal, state, and local officials and the entire public had months to understand the transmission of the coronavirus, evaluate health measures, and take steps to protect their communities. Predictions of high death totals were reported but often dismissed or disregarded. We have access to an extraordinary amount of data about COVID-19 for the United States and the world, as well as granular information about testing, cases, infection rates, hospitalizations, and deaths at the national, state, regional, and even local level. We have known what is happening, and likely outcomes, and yet so many people have refused to make the changes in behavior necessary to control the continued spread of this disease, particularly among the most vulnerable populations.
The fact that deaths surged at the end of 2020, nine months after the pandemic reached the United States, with the highest daily death tolls in early January 2021, is perhaps the most discouraging comparison to the historical record. We ignored the lessons of 1918, and then we disregarded warnings issued in the first months of this pandemic. We will never know how many lives could have been saved if we had taken this threat more seriously. We are paying a terrible price now for this failure of policy and practice.”
Thank you for proving my point!!!
My God, you are too easy to bait.
More DEFLECTION, DEFLECTION, DEFLECTION and ZERO acknowledgment of Trump’s accomplishments. NOT ONCE!!!
Let the record show you have not mentioned ONE accomplishment as a direct result of President Trump’s REMARKABLE ECONOMIC POLICIES that unleashed the economy and set government records for employment and I could mention dozens more, but totally wasted on you will just ignore facts.
Your personal HATE of the most remarkable non-politician president in U.S. history is totally IRRELEVANT. You are dishonest, you don’t give credit where credit is due and all you spew is PARTISAN POISION when mentioning President Trump every time.
Guess what, wokester. Factually history does not need TxUseless APPROVAL…
His REMARKABLE ECONOMIC POLICIES did not result in significantly different rates of improvement than the Obama policies. Yes, he reached higher absolute numbers, but that happens automatically in an improving economy like the one Trump inherited.
TxUseless, YOU are a PARTISAN LIAR.
I could bury you in competing statistics that you would either ignore, DEFLECT or deny so the smart thing to do is I’m not going to waste my time.
Nuff said…
TxLoser:
You are either a dullard pawn or a bald-faced liar.
TxLoser:
The current wave of anti competitive practices can be blamed on the Bush administration going easy on Microsoft in 2001. Lots of companies gave up on real innovation at that point, causing the tech bubble to burst. This was so bad that at one point the DOJ was going to have Microsoft give all their software free to schools – Apple had to rush in and explain that that would strengthen Microsoft’s monopoly at Apple’s expense.
Once the anti-trust actions were dead, other companies went back to the drawing board and decided to build business models based on restricting customers instead of empowering them. We would have a very different world today if the Bush administration had put people ahead of corporations.
==================
As for the dim bulbs blaming Biden for what happens every summer: What did Trump supporters think the Wall was going to do? It was supposed to cause a labor shortage by keeping all those workers in Mexico! Thus stopping Mexicans from depressing wages. Remember that? What is happening is exactly what you thought Trump would do for you.
Economics 101: if you restrict the labor supply without restricting demand, the price for labor goes up. Most of our agricultural production jobs in the United States, and many service industry jobs, had historically been filled by immigrants with visas (or not). Cutting down on the visas and shutting the border to even legal immigration caused an acute labor shortage. The effect has been masked for the last eighteen months because the pandemic drove down demand, but the demand has now come back with a vengeance. The price of labor has shot up, as has the price of nearly everything that requires labor for its production. Crops are rotting in the fields because there is nobody to pick them. What produce can make it to market demands a premium price.
As Tau Myx said, higher labor costs are exactly what the ex-President promised us.
I ask again: Didn’t you notice that things didn’t go to shit until Dementia Joe and the Ho took over? Is your head too far up your gullible ass to see?
Did you notice that the pandemic didn’t start subsiding until we got rid of Trump? Of course not!
Not even an idiot would think that makes sense. Congrats, you are dumber than an idiot
Even by libturd standards you a very special kind of stupid
But it is the exact same logic you used about the economy. Even you can see how stupid your logic is when it is mirrored back to you. The truth is the economy is improving, and the prices are due to temporary disruptions due to the pandemic. But of course you don’t want to hear that, you want reasons to blindly rage about anything the Democrats do.
Yup, that’s your view from inside your ass
Your level of Leftist sophistry, LIES and false claims only a Libtard could produce.
The pandemic subsided naturally on its own after President Trump fast tracking of three vaccines as a result of Project Warp Speed that was administering millions of shots per day before he left office and continued to this day.
My God, how partisan STUPID and BLIND one can be…
Speaking of lies and false claims:
The pandemic did not “subside naturally on its own.” One in four of all the US Covid deaths between January 2020 and January 20, 2021 occurred in the last five weeks of that period. Daily death tolls in mid-January 2021 averaged more than 3,300 deaths a day — well above the most devastating days of the early spring surge, when daily average deaths hovered around 2,000.
Meanwhile, Our President was doing his best impression of Captain Smith on the Titanic, assuring us that all would be well without any effort on our part. That attitude has fueled the resistance to vaccination and other public health measures that will continue to fuel hot spots for the foreseeable future.
Project Warp Speed only delivered two vaccines, not three. The Pfizer vaccine was funded by Germany. PWS additionally funded half a dozen others that have never been approved as safe and effective.
As of January 20, 2021, less than 10 million Americans had received even one dose of any vaccine. Clearly, there were not “millions of doses being administered every day.” The Biden Administration had to build a vaccine distribution system almost from scratch.
The Republic survived with Trump’s defeat. The only thing that went to shit is y’all.
Libturd = liberal shit for brains Apparently, you need constant reminders
Tau has more brains inside his ass that you have in your whole head.
Meanwhile, if you support an authoritarian, sociopathic, fraud for the price of toothpicks, you’re truly a special breed of stupid.
Oh look, the idiot libturd, cynic thinks his opinion matters. How precious!
applecynic,
I know that your first grade teacher told you that all opinions matter and that there is no such thing as a wrong opinion.
Your teacher LIED. Opinions from idiots like you are wrong and they don’t matter.
No better proof of libturds’ stupidity than voting for a corrupt, racist dementia patient and a ho. Even animals don’t let the dumbest of the heard lead them.
You are correct that not all opinions count. Facts count more than opinions.
You candidate got clobbered.
Your candidate tried to invalidate the election.
Your party members attempted to violently prevent Congress from validating the EC vote.
Your party obstructs voters.
Where I cam from you had to pass a Constitution Proficiency test before being admitted to High School.
And this is why it’s important you go eff ypurself!
AC only in your Leftist mind did Trump get “clobbered.”
In 2024 Trump will clobber dementia Biden or the clueless giggling hyena V.P…
You know how stupid the average libturd is? Applecynic is dumber that that
Where I live we have a saying that when all else fails – appeals to common sense, truth, decency, historical exactitude, moral fortitude, honesty, integrity, courage, self-awareness, and wholeheartedness, there is little else that can be said.
So First, Hal, Guttersnipe Trash GoeB…
“What are you like?
@Hal: it would be refreshing if you, your alter ego First, and your pet monkey Goeb could bring objective facts to substantiate your increasingly erratic opinions. You never do. All you ever offer is weak insults which prove over and over that you are nothing but a paid gop troll.
To anyone who isn’t pickled in partisan haterade, 2021 has been a stellar year. Economic good news week after week, jobs AND wage growth, and progress in repairing frayed trade relations. Economically, wtf more do you want???
In other good news, a tax cheat was indicted for illegally keeping double accounts, proving that even though it’s slow, the rule of law still works. Who knew that someone supposedly dedicated to making his country great would buy Mercedes cars as perks for his employees with undeclared profits from his inherited real estate company? We know you’re elated that all people are equal under the law, and will support justice being served, like a True American.
Nobody here with a brain understands your incessant need to play perpetual victim & irritable rude old whiny beeatch. Capisce?
Answer: MS the convicted monopolist was sentenced and has received its punishment. Personally, would have broken them up, but the courts found other wise.
So are there new charges to bring? If not, there’s nothing to see here.