Vs. Microsoft: Forget DOJ, NetAction
Consumer Group Is Taking on Microsoft
By Cate T. Corcoran
Special to TheStreet.com
5/23/98 12:15 AM ET
OAKLAND -- You know you're big -- really, really big -- when
you star in jokes told by little kids at recess. Years ago,
there was one that went, "Kissinger, Nixon, the Pope and
a hippie are in an airplane..." The joke lives on, but now Bill
Gates has replaced Kissinger in the starring role as the
self-proclaimed "smartest man in the world" -- you know, the
one who stupidly jumps out of the plane with the hippie's
backpack instead of a parachute.
That's how visible Microsoft (MSFT:Nasdaq) has become.
Five years ago, Microsoft was just another computer
company that the average person didn't think much about.
Especially not the average person inclined to any kind of
liberal activism. Those folks tended to concern themselves
with corporations' records on product safety, the environment
and labor concerns.
But now, Microsoft has arrived. The Department of Justice
aside, the software giant now finds itself on the battleground
of citizens' and consumer groups.
San Francisco nonprofit NetAction (www.netaction.org),
originally founded in 1996 to train political activists to use
the Internet for campaigns, has taken up against Microsoft
with its Consumer Choice Campaign. The campaign aims to
educate Internet surfers about Microsoft's supposedly
questionable business practices.
NetAction has published -- on the Internet, of course -- what
are probably the most comprehensive and well-researched
anti-Microsoft studies. The author of these two white papers
is Nathan Newman, a grad student in sociology at the
University of California at Berkeley, and the project
director for NetAction's Consumer Choice Campaign.
"Microsoft undermines open standards that will allow people
to collaborate in a real way," he says, sitting cross-legged
on his couch in a flannel shirt and jeans. "What this is all
about is the right of the public to have its interests protected.
When we look at antitrust laws, when we look at patent
rights, this is all about how do we promote technology,
innovation, access to this technology, equality of access to
this technology. And Microsoft has a certain arrogance when
it acts as if those concerns are invalid."
Newman, 31, says he would like to see the breakup of
Microsoft into "Baby Bills." He would also like Microsoft to
publish its source code while retaining ownership of it. That
would prevent Microsoft from using profits from its monopoly
to gain an unfair advantage in other markets, he says,
stroking the small black cat that has settled into his lap.
His two papers exhaustively document Microsoft's product
plans, investments and acquisitions. They also lay out a
worst-case scenario for how the company could come to
dominate, well, just about everything.
In a paper called "The Future of E-Commerce," Newman
explains how Microsoft ties its operating systems, servers
and Web sites together to control financial software and
transactions. "Microsoft is building an integrated financial
and commercial empire where customers will use
Microsoft-produced software to access Web sites using
Microsoft server software, then buy products sold by
Microsoft, and have the transaction processed through a
bank using a system owned by Microsoft. This is a level of
vertical commercial integration never before seen in the
history of the country."
With only several hundred members and two employees,
NetAction is not a large organization. It subsists on
donations, and Hewlett-Packard Laboratories is its
best-known contributor. There are rumors that Sun
(SUNW:Nasdaq) and Netscape (NSCP:Nasdaq) are big
anonymous donors, but NetAction executive director Audrie
Krause says she can't confirm that. Before NetAction,
Newman worked with community and labor groups on such
projects as setting up a Web site about economic
democracy and creating a Web-based national budget
simulator that has been used by school groups.
Newman's hope is that NetAction's documents on the Web
will create a groundswell of public opinion calling for strong
government action against the company. NetAction reminds
you to email your senator.
The group puts out two email newsletters to about 2,000
subscribers. The white paper, "From Microsoft Word to
Microsoft World," has been accessed nearly 50,000 times
by NetAction site visitors since it was posted in November
last year. The paper on e-commerce has been requested
nearly 6,000 times since it went up a month ago.
NetAction's most popular item, though, is a spoof of the
Microsoft logo that depicts a big shark gobbling little fish.
Although its research appears to be widely read, the extent
of the group's political clout is unclear. Members of the
organization's board have met with the Justice Department's
Phil Malone, according to Krause. (The Department of
Justice declined to comment on the meeting or confirm that
it had taken place.) Jeanne Lopatto, press secretary for the
Senate Judiciary Committee -- which held a hearing on
Microsoft earlier this year -- said that committee chairman
Sen. Orrin Hatch was aware of the group and had received
mail from them, but that they had not been especially
influential.
Correspondence does "contribute to our knowledge about
the issue, but NetAction has been no more influential than
any other group that's had contact with us," Lopatto says.
A Microsoft spokeswoman said the company supports
everyone's right to an opinion and free speech but otherwise
had no comment on NetAction.
Other political groups praised the organization. Ralph
Nader's group, which has created a program similar to
NetAction's Consumer Choice Campaign called the
Consumer Project on Technology, said NetAction is a good
organization that shares their views.
"Microsoft is a monopoly, and NetAction is trying to make
people more aware of that viewpoint and promote that there
should be more choice for consumers," said CPT assistant
Seth Morris. NetAction spoke at CPT's recent conference in
Washington, D.C.
"They are a watchdog group that regularly keeps an eye on
Microsoft," says Caroline Jonah, CPT conference
coordinator. She said there seems to be a lot of public
interest in the issue, judging by the responses CPT has
gotten to its conference and Web site, but that public
opinion about Microsoft's behavior seems to be pretty evenly
divided.
"It's not an issue that has come down to the average
consumer, because they think they're getting an OK product
at an OK price," she says. "But people who are really
involved in the industry can see that there's really a problem.
If one company controls the PC market, then what
possibility is there for innovation?"
Cate T. Corcoran writes about technology, business, culture
and media from San Francisco. Her work has appeared in
the San Jose Mercury News, Salon, CNET, Wired News,
Byte and many other publications. |
