Re: Microsoft Increased Lobbying in '98

[Simon Cooke <simonc@jumper.org.uk>]

-----Original Message-----
From: am-info@essential.org [mailto:am-info@essential.org]On Behalf Of
Doug Masson
>I believe Mr. Cooke was attempting to make
>the point that Microsoft is no different than
>many others in the computer industry.
>Everyone who *is* anyone makes political
>contributions. That is how the game is
>played.

>If this was the point that Mr. Cooke was
>attempting to make (and I beg his pardon if
>it was not), then he has missed what I took
>to be the original point entirely.
>Microsoft's sharp increase in political
>contributions corresponds pretty dramatically
>with Microsoft's legal troubles. 
---

The thing is, there's many ways of looking at this:

1. Your opponents lobbied various parties to get them to start
   lawsuits against you. In order to stop the lawsuits, you
   lobby them more. Lobby, of course, being the standard
   Washington euphemism for "donate chunks of cash to"

2. Parties with political power will use that power to gain
   financially; anyone who doesn't play the lobbying game
   gets squeezed.

3. You just want to donate some money to parties you believe in.

4. You want to protect your own interests in Congress.

They're not all mutually exclusive, however, I believe that in
this game, (3) is as believable as Elvis working at my local
7-11 on the day-shift. (Everyone knows he's a night owl).

Whichever way you cut it, Microsoft didn't make contributions
that reached anywhere near that of its competitors until very
recently. Although I'd like to believe that SC dropping out of
the case and Microsoft donating money to them are unconnected,
unfortunately I don't think that is the case. From which you
can gather a number of conclusions - pick whichever one fits
your worldview, I won't attempt to sway you. And I'm not
going to tell you which one I think it is either.

a. Microsoft is corrupt, and bribing officials to get out of
   a bind.

b. Microsoft realised that its competitors were bribing
   officials to put it on trial for trumped-up charges, and
   so decided the only way to stop the farce was to fight
   fire with fire.

c. The Government and politicial system in America is as
   corrupt as the data on a floppy disk that's been to
   Jupiter and back without shielding, and in the land of the
   free, there ain't no such thing as a free lunch. Pay up,
   or pay the consequences if you're a big business.

d. It's perfectly fine for anyone but Microsoft to bribe
   people, but as we all hate Microsoft, let's all jump
   up and down when they start doing what everyone else
   is doing.

Feel free, of course, to draw whatever conclusions of your
own you'd like to. Personally I'd like to see disclosure
laws tightened up for all business deals and anything
regarding political lobbying/campaigning - anywhere
that collusion and bribery affects the public. But of course,
Congress would never pass such a law, would it? It's not
in the Government's elected members interest to do so.

Simon (Not speaking in any way, shape or form for Microsoft. My views are
my own and may or may not necessarily be shared by the company I work for)