[Am-info] Legal monopoly?

[John Poltorak]

On Tue, Apr 30, 2002 at 02:25:48PM -0500, Eric Bennett wrote:
> John Poltorak wrote:
> 
> > What spin would you put on this section of the Sherman Act?
> 
> Legally, there is a distinction between a business which bases its
> activities on the premise of responding to market forces and creating
> better products or more efficient business practices, and a business which
> bases its activities on the primary goal of destroying competition.  The
> latter is the "monopolization" that is prohibited by the Sherman Act; 

Destruction of competing products my Microsoft is well documented.

They stole STACs code and incorporated it in DOS 6. 

They sabotaged DR DOS by putting spurious code into Windows 3.11.

They 'fined' IBM for daring to offer a rival OS on some of its computers.

They 'stole the air' which Netscape breathed.

There are probably many other examples as well...


> the
> former is not considered "monopolization" for legal purposes even if the
> end result of such behavior is a monopoly.  The Supreme Court notes the
> difference in US v. Grinnell Corp, among other cases (you can look the case
> up at www.findlaw.com).

There is no question of Microsoft's behaviour being in contravention of 
the Sherman Act. They have been operating as an illegal monopoly. But 
because the courts are doing nothing about it their behaviour has 
effectively been legitimised.

The question has to be asked, what is the point in having the Sherman Act 
if a powerful company can simply break it with impunity?


Incidentally, re-reading the 'Findings of Fact' is interesting. 

For anyone who hasn't done so, I'd suggest having a look. It's here:-

http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/f3800/msjudge.pdf

> -- 
> Eric Bennett ( ericb@pobox.com ; http://www.pobox.com/~ericb )

-- 
John