United States v. Microsoft

United States v. Microsoft (87 F. Supp. 2d 30 (D.D.C. 2000)) was a court case filed against Microsoft Corporation on May 18, 1998 by the United States Department of Justice and twenty U.S. states. The plantiffs alleged that Microsoft abused monopoly power in its handling of operating system sales and web browser sales. The issue central to the case was whether Microsoft was allowed to bundle its flagship Internet Explorer web browser software with its Microsoft Windows operating system. Bundling them together is alleged to have been responsible for Microsoft's victory in the browser wars as every Windows user had a copy of Internet Explorer. It was further alleged that this unfairly restricted the market for competing web browsers (such as Netscape Communicator) that were slow to download over a modem or had to be purchased at a store. Underlying these disputes were questions over whether Microsoft altered or manipulated its application programming interfaces (APIs) to favor Internet Explorer over third party web browsers, Microsoft's conduct in forming restrictive licensing agreements with OEM computer manufacturers, and Microsoft's intent in its course of conduct.

Appeal

In September 26, 2000, after Judge Jackson issued his "findings of fact", Microsoft appealed to the Supreme Court. However, the Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal and sent the case to a federal appeals court. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously overturned Judge Jackson's rulings against Microsoft on browser tying and attempted monopolization on several independent grounds, including the fact that he had failed to hold evidentiary hearings and that interviews he gave to the news media during the case demonstrated a bias against Microsoft. Judge Jackson's response to this was that Microsoft's conduct itself was the cause of any "perceived bias"; he said that Microsoft executives had "proved, time and time again, to be inaccurate, misleading, evasive, and transparently false. ... Microsoft is a company with an institutional disdain for both the truth and for rules of law that lesser entities must respect. It is also a company whose senior management is not averse to offering specious testimony to support spurious defenses to claims of its wrongdoing." http://www.winnetmag.com/Article/ArticleID/20269/20269.html However, the appeals court did affirm in part Judge Jackson's ruling on monopolization. The D.C. Circuit remanded the case for consideration of a proper remedy for "drastically altered scope of liability" that the court had upheld, under Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly. The DOJ, now under the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush, announced on September 6, 2001 that it was no longer seeking to break up Microsoft and would instead seek a lesser antitrust penalty.

Related Topics:
News media - Colleen Kollar-Kotelly - U.S. President - George W. Bush - September 6 - 2001

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~