09.07.08

The New York Times, Hosted by Microsoft Revisionists

Posted in America, Antitrust, Apple, GNU/Linux, Law, Microsoft, OLPC at 4:36 pm by Roy Schestowitz

This Web site as well as others have already shown the strong tie between the New York Times and Microsoft. That type of bond is a broader issue. It results in promotional articles and inaccurate revisionist placements, which glorify Gates and pitch in Microsoft's favour. Novell has a role in this too and the same goes for BBC revisionism [1, 2]. Recent examples revolve around OOXML corruptions, which are being denied in the press once witnesses and victims forgot the truth or creased to actively fight for it. Truth has a shelf life because history is being rewritten.

The following old piece demonstrates the fact that the New York Times is letting Microsoft itself publish articles dismissing the antitrust allegations against Microsoft. Intel was doing the same thing (e.g. in the Wall Street Journal) after it had deliberately and maliciously destroyed the OLPC project. Either way, the disclosures typically come at the very bottom (i.e. no prior warning to innocent or fast readers).

The trial court’s decision is before the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. It is Microsoft’s hope that upon full judicial review, the consent decree will be entered, a result you seemed to anticipate in a July 21, 1994, editorial that extolled the consent decree. WILLIAM H. NEUKOM Senior V.P. & General Counsel Microsoft Corporation Redmond, Wash., March 2, 1995

This is just one example of a letter that becomes an article. A Microsoft VP serves as a defendant and a judge for that which is also being prosecuted, which makes it an irresponsible deed. The “letters from the dead” incident is worth recalling here [1, 2]. It’s known as AstroTurfing.

To set the record straight, we have accumulated some articles from around that time. They will be a valuable addition to the BillWatch archive and other external resources.

Old articles from these days include:

1994

MICROSOFT CRIME HURT CONSUMERS

You portrayed Microsoft crime only as providing low-cost superior goods in a way deemed harmful to competitors. Not true! Microsoft’s crime was forcing computer manufacturers to pay a royalty for every computer sold, in order to ship Microsoft’s MS-DOS…

Some years later came this article: Microsoft Trial — Compaq Staff Feared Sabotage, Retaliation (OEM exclusivity was mentioned before)

A Compaq Computer executive testified that personal-computer makers have no alternative to Microsoft’s Windows operating system, while other employees of the Texas PC manufacturer described Microsoft as a monopoly capable of retaliatory practices and sabotage.

1997

Industry group rips Microsoft’s `extortion’

A group of computer and telephone companies charged yesterday that Microsoft was using “extortion” in its battle with Netscape Communications Corp. for dominance in selling browsers for the World Wide Web.

1998

Government Has the Edge So Far in U.S. vs. Microsoft

Avadis Tevanian, an Apple Computer Inc. senior vice president, comes armed with allegations of blackmail, software sabotage and an illegal market-division attempt by Microsoft in multimedia software. The market-division charge could be especially damaging, because it echoes a core claim made by the Justice Department and 20 states in the broad antitrust lawsuits they filed in May.

Apple: MS ‘Sabotaged’ QuickTime

An Apple Computer executive questioned by a Microsoft lawyer on Wednesday stuck by his accusation that the software giant had “sabotaged” Apple’s multimedia software.

RealNetworks Accuses Microsoft of Sabotage

Highlight from Senate hearings: CEO Robert Glaser claims Windows Media Player intentionally disables RealNetworks product.

Microsoft Accused of Sabotaging Witness’s Computer Program

Testifying as a Government witness, Dr. Felten said several computers on which Internet Explorer had been removed with his ”prototype removal program” worked smoothly through the summer, even when used to visit a special Microsoft Web page for updates to Windows 98.

But then in September, Dr. Felten testified, he gave Microsoft a copy of the source code for his removal program as part of a pretrial discovery request. After that, he said, ”Microsoft modified the software” behind the company’s update Web page ”to make it incompatible” with computers that had been altered by his removal program.

1999

MICROSOFT READY FOR FLOOD OF LAWSUITS

Lawyers are opening the spigots on what is expected to be a flood of private lawsuits alleging that Microsoft Corp. used its control of the market to overcharge customers.
In the wake of a federal judge’s ruling that the software giant is a monopoly, class-action attorneys in California were expected to file one suit against Microsoft today in that state’s courts.
Last week in New Orleans, an attorney filed suit in federal court seeking to represent millions of Windows 98 owners nationwide, alleging that Microsoft used intimidation to reduce consumers’ choices and force them to pay higher prices.

Microsoft Accused of Trying To Get Away with Murder.

Late Tuesday the unappeased states rushed breathlessly into court with the news that they had made the horrifying discovery that Microsoft was actually benefiting from its settlement with the Justice Department.

What are all these settlements anyway? It’s not justice. It’s a “here is some money, leave us alone” solution, which does not resolve anything and does not bring truth to light. Comes vs. Microsoft is a recent example of this, another older one being related to fraud.

2001

Judge’s public critique of Microsoft raises questions

Microsoft’s “crime” was its hubris — that is, an oversized pride that prevented the company from acknowledging that U.S. antitrust laws applied to it, Jackson told article author Ken Auletta.

Judge Jackson, who studied this case for a very long time, called Microsoft “criminals”. Rather than rewarding him for honesty, punishment was what he got.

They seem to have ‘pulled a Peter Quinn’ [1, 2] on Judge Jackson and then came this.

A year ago February, Thomas Penfield Jackson, the trial court judge, appointed a distinguished jurist, Judge Richard Posner of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Chicago, to mediate a settlement. With draconian penalties looming, Microsoft accepted demands by the Justice Department that included tough, continuing regulation of the company’s marketing tactics. But the hard-line state Attorneys general — notably those from California, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Iowa — vetoed the deal, leading the frustrated mediator to point out in public that the “states do not have the resources to do more than free ride on federal antitrust litigation, complicating its resolution.”

Since then, an appellate court has rolled back most of the findings of legal liability that gave the government its leverage and instructed the trial court to create remedies that fit the “drastically altered” circumstances. Under prodding to settle from the newly appointed judge, Colleen Kollar- Kotelly, prosecutors worked out another deal that puts a lid on Microsoft’s aggressive behavior — albeit one less confining than the agreement California Attorney General Lockyer and company so righteously dismissed almost two years ago. A rump group of attorneys general have now declared that they will oppose the proposed settlement when Judge Kollar-Kotelly formally reviews it.

Why are they asking the court to derail the settlement, effectively guaranteeing that the case won’t be resolved for years?

The Department of Justice has never been the same since. █

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