The People Have Spoken!
By: Mario Rodrigues
Date: February 7, 2002
When the public comment period
for the proposed Microsoft settlement had ended, the DOJ had received 30,000
responses; of those, half did not agree with the settlement, a quarter were in
favor, and the rest did not show any sentiment either way. This is a great
victory for the ordinary man in the street and also signals the disgust felt
about how soft the DOJ has been with Microsoft.
Microsoft and the DOJ are
now considering changing the proposed settlement.
It seems obscene that public comment can sway the judgment of Microsoft and the
DOJ when the law concerning this matter is so very clear about how to deal with
companies that break anti-trust laws:
The Supreme Court has explained that a remedies decree in an antitrust case
must seek to ‘unfetter a market from anticompetitive conduct,' Ford Motor Co.,
405 U.S. at 577, to ‘terminate the illegal monopoly, deny to the defendant the
fruits of its statutory violation, and ensure that there remain no practices
likely to result in monopolization in the future,' United States v. United Shoe
Mach. Corp., 391 U.S. 244, 250 (1968); see also United States v. Grinnell Corp.,
384 U.S. 563, 577 (1966).
The language is clear and concise, all that needs to be done is to apply the
law, there is no need for further negotiation. If the above criteria is not met,
this settlement will not be considered a success for justice.
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