ISPs subpoenaed in Microsoft case news.com
A couple other stories on this, which I'll note at the end, this one seems the most comprehensive.
All of the companies subpoenaed declined to specify exactly what information the CIDs sought, but a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on competition in the software industry last November provides some important clues. At the hearing, Sen. Orrin Hatch criticized an agreement in which Microsoft agreed to promote EarthLink in a section of Windows 95 in exchange for EarthLink promoting Internet Explorer to its subscribers.
The contract allowed Microsoft to immediately suspend the deal if the percentage of EarthLink subscribers using Internet Explorer fell below a certain level. It also forbade EarthLink from telling some of its new subscribers that they had the option of using browsers made by Microsoft's competitors.
Standard Microsoft business practice, of course, and one of the hidden costs of "free forever" IE.
Microsoft spokesman Jim Cullinan declined to discuss specifics of the deals, but defended the contracts as "procompetitive. These kinds of mutual promotional agreements are common in the software industry," he said. "They benefit both sides and are completely voluntary."
Antitrust experts, however, said that the quotas and gag rules appeared to fall into a gray area that may or may not be found to violate the law, depending on certain circumstances. Generally speaking, they said, antitrust laws hold companies that command monopolies in a given market to a higher standard than their smaller competitors.
But that's so unfair to Microsoft!
Rich Gray, an antitrust attorney with Bergeson, Eliopoulos, Grady, & Gray, agreed.
"Since there is a strong argument that Microsoft has monopoly power in [the operating system] marketplace, it is appropriate, then, to impose restrictions on Microsoft that would not be imposed on anyone else," he said. "That's one of the burdens of having monopoly power."
But they earned their monopoly power fair and square! They should be able to do whatever they want with it! It's in the constitution or something.
Other coverage:
The MS-DOJ chess match www5.zdnet.com
Justice Dept. Subpoenas MCI and AOL in Microsoft Inquiry nytimes.com
Cheers, Dan. |
