Antitrust actions under Klein have been "extremely 
aggressive" when it comes to the high tech sector, said 
Breton Bocchieri, an intellectual property and high 
tech lawyer with Arter & Hadden in California. That 
stance is "neither good or bad, it's a fact of life," 
Bocchieri said.

Such aggressive enforcement actions are needed, 
Bocchieri said, adding the "process of implementation 
needs to reflect the modern paradigm." 
...
Taking aim at the high tech sector is really a "chicken 
and egg problem," said Andrew Gavil, an antitrust law 
professor at the Howard University Law School. The 
Department of Justice is "aggressively watching a sector 
of the economy that (a) is generating a lot of wealth 
and economic progress; and (b) is exhibiting signs of 
stress through aggressive behavior," Gavil said. 

Underlying the DoJ's aggressive look at high tech, 
Gavil said, are market forces that are "a rarity in our 
far-flung economy: Genuinely aggressive activity by 
genuinely dominant firms."

The push into the high tech sector can be linked 
to the underlying philosophy of the Clinton 
administration, says Robert Levy, a senior fellow with 
the Washington-based Cato Institute, a Libertarian 
think tank. Levy characterizes the administration as 
having "a predisposition toward government solutions... 
they are fundamentally distrustful of the free market 
to police itself."

Levy also believes the DOJ's interest in high tech is 
being driven by disaffected competitors. 

...Arguing against the implication that his 
division acts as a front man for disgruntled companies, 
Klein says the "cynics among us can always try and 
harmonize events with a theory," but the fact is, some 
cases "are meritorious and some are not."

What other high tech areas might be red flags for 
antitrust enforcement action? One potential target 
could be the aggregation of companies and technologies 
being cobbled together by Internet portals, such as 
America Online and Yahoo!. AOL, in particular, has 
made no secret of the fact that it intends to compete 
head on with Microsoft for the heart and soul of 
Internet surfers with its so-called "AOL Everywhere" 
strategy. 
...
These alliances are in the spirit of cooperation, 
which is not an illegal activity. However, if they are 
doing so with the intent of monopolizing a sector of 
the industry, that does breach antitrust laws. It also 
puts Klein in a quandary: he would have to prosecute 
some of the very companies his lawyers relied on as 
key witnesses during the Microsoft trial.