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Comments: 198 +-   Microsoft Settles Iowa Antitrust Case on Wednesday February 14 2007, @02:09PM

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wednesday February 14 2007, @02:09PM
from the everyone-loves-to-hate dept.
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ForestRangerBob writes "Comes v. Microsoft is over after Microsoft agreed to a settlement. The class action lawsuit alleged that Iowa consumers had been overcharged for Microsoft products for a decade owing to Microsoft's monopoly of the market. Predictably, the lawyers are about to get a big payday and 'the software giant will certainly be on the hook for millions of dollars, some of which may end up helping Iowa school kids. Average consumers will probably end up with a few bucks or a coupon for a free operating system upgrade, but the real winners will no doubt be the lawyers — the team prosecuting the case has already earned $60 million in legal fees from a 2004 case in Minnesota that charged Microsoft with similar offenses.'"
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  • documents on iowaconsumercase.org gone (Score:5, Interesting)

    by whoever57 (658626) on Wednesday February 14 2007, @02:12PM (#18014958) Journal
    When I first tried to read the comments, I got /.'s familiar "nothing to see here..." message, which also describes the site that hosted the documents from the Iowa case. Going to the site hosting the documents [iowaconsumercase.org] now results in a login request.
    • I see that google caches [google.com] of some of it are still available. I couldn't find anything at archive.org though on the WBM [archive.org].

      A quick glance at Groklaw shows more links to the Iowa site then copies of the docs. What a shame the public record gets so quickly covered up once the money starts changing hands.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I used wget to take a mirrored copy of the entire site about two weeks ago so some of it could be available then. If someone could advise me regarding the legal side of making it public, then I will make it public. Please send advice to iowaconsumercase@dodgeit.com

      • Re:Stop and think for one second... (Score:5, Informative)

        by suckmysav (763172) <suckmysavNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Wednesday February 14 2007, @08:45PM (#18019266) Journal
        This would be a valid point were it not for the fact that Microsoft uses its vast market power to exclude alternatives from being visible at the point of sale. By ensuring that the likes of Dell, HP/Compaq, IBM, Acer and Gateway don't offer alternative OS choices through threats of massive price hikes via their OEM contracts they make it virtually impossible for someone to purchase a brand name PC without purchasing Windows with it.

        Have you ever tried buying a PC without Windows? There are only two ways to do it. Buy a whitebox from a small retailer or stumble upon the occasional PC with pre-loaded linux that is usullay hidden deep in the bowels of the websites of online retailers such as Dell and HP.

        In the first case a lot of people are hesitant to buy non brand name PC's because they incorrectly assume that they will get better quality if they choose a brand they "know" (read: have heard of).

        In the second case it is usually impossible to find any PC loaded with linux just by connecting to a retailers main page and just clicking. You usually have to already know that they offer a Linux PC and then have enough ability to search and find it on the site. Often you can't even find it using the search tools on the site and you have to do a site: search in Google, which most people don't even know you can do.

        You can't just go pick a PC and then choose between Windows and Linux, which is how it would work were there a level playing field.

        This is why people are always "bashing on Microsoft". If they had faith in their own product then they would have no problem with competing fairly against Linux.

        Clearly they don't have faith in their products, so why should we?

          • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

            by suckmysav (763172)
            Are you suggesting that Microsoft does not use their dominant position in the market place to enormous amounts of pressure major vendors to not offer Linux as an alternative? Do you really believe that Microsoft is willing to compete head to head with Linux on equal footing? Why should they be allowed to threaten OEMs with huge price hikes if they dare to offer alternative products?

            As for Walmart, as far as I am aware they were selling absolutely crappy ultra-cheapo white boxes without any sort of ability t

  • You're kidding, right? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Dunbal (464142) on Wednesday February 14 2007, @02:13PM (#18014962)
    Average consumers will probably end up with a few bucks or a coupon for a free operating system upgrade

          No, that's worth WAAAAAY too much. The consumers will get a free Microsft Vista (tm) mousepad.
    • Oh, they'll get a free Vista upgrade alright...

    • Re:You're kidding, right? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by schwaang (667808) on Wednesday February 14 2007, @02:49PM (#18015372)
      Average consumers won't even hear about this. Just like in the California settlement, I don't know anyone who actually filed. Two people I know started the process and were intimidated by the paperwork because they didn't have receipts for computers they bought years before and were afraid of being audited. (They both had legitimately purchased copies of eligible MS products.)

      Hopefully the money that doesn't go to the lawyers will at least go to schools or something.

  • Laywers are the winners (Score:3, Insightful)

    by nurb432 (527695) on Wednesday February 14 2007, @02:18PM (#18015022) Homepage Journal
    Well duh.. even the losing side's laywers get paid well.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by EggyToast (858951)
      Yeah, I love how the article makes it sounds like lawyers don't almost always work for winning case payouts. I'm sure lawyers would love if retainer fees could pay for running an independent business, but that's simply not the case.

      If people are anti-lawyer, they should stop suing people. But then other people would have to stop trying to break the law. <sigh>

        • Re:Laywers are the winners (Score:4, Insightful)

          by nomadic (141991) <(moc.liamg) (ta) (dlrowcidamon)> on Wednesday February 14 2007, @06:14PM (#18017830) Homepage
          We (the USA) needs to scrap legal jargon and rewrite the laws plainly, then let a judge decide if the law applies to an act and let the jury decide if they're guilty.

          The more plain they are, the more ambiguous. Give me an example of what you would consider a "plainly written" law, and I guarantee I will find ambiguity or loopholes in it.

          Laws are structured for precision.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by hackstraw (262471) *
      Well duh.. even the losing side's laywers get paid well.

      The problem is that MS is a little upset that it cost them some of their beloved cash, but they shake it off and think of this as the cost of doing business. They are like everyone else, they don't want to pay for utilities, taxes, or whatever, but its just the cost of doing what you do.

      What I want is a real judgement or change from these cases, not a glorified parking ticket. What is going to change from this? Nada.

      What is microsoft a monopoly on?
      • I say its time for MS to be forced to publish their "standards" and APIs.

        I disagree. I think that Microsoft has to be stopped from using anti-competitive tactics in their way of doing business and the rest will take care of itself. Let them keep their junk, closed source, buggy operating system.

        I say one set of prices for EVERYONE published publicly with no contract tie-ins to any other MS or competing product coming into the equation will take care of everything!

  • The system works! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Iphtashu Fitz (263795) on Wednesday February 14 2007, @02:18PM (#18015034)
    Not...

    Almost makes me wish I was a lawyer. Almost.
    • in fact, it seems there is more money to be made in the good ole' USA by SUING for IP than actually INVENTING IP.

      if some kid in college asked me if he should go into law or engineering, I know what I'd say.

      (up until the point where lawyers are OUTSOURCED. now wouldn't that be a nice bit of irony? don't laugh - I bet this move is on its way over the next decade and so lawyers will be 'out of work' just like many of my fellow engineers in the USA are).

      and I do like that comment, a few above this one, that s

  • wow (Score:5, Funny)

    by Billly Gates (198444) on Wednesday February 14 2007, @02:21PM (#18015066) Homepage Journal
    A coupon so Microsoft can increase sales of more copies of windows.

    Boy, that sure showed Microsoft.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by KKlaus (1012919)
      That's actually more insightful than funny, in my opinion. If I buy a laptop that burns my house down, you think I really want store credit? The worst thing is that I suspect it's actually profitable for the "losing" company when coupons are forced. Customers are drawn back to someone they never would have bought from again because bargains are attractive. Some punishment.
  • I have no grudge against most legal professionals, but what a huge waste of time and money. Rules should be enforced to prevent wrong doing rather than punishing for it. MS throwing a huge amount of money into a settlement does very little to help anyone and does no more to rectify a wrong (prehaps less) than jailing a murderer.
    • You expect Justice? ....Lawyers... Microsoft...did I somehow miss another player here?
      • No, you're right and that is exactly my point. It isn't justice, and could never have been justice..
        Besides, I'll conceed the point that there's no money in provention, except for the money left in "people's" pockets, everone knows how well the capitalism machine works for "people".

    • Rules should be enforced to prevent wrong doing rather than punishing for it. MS throwing a huge amount of money into a settlement does very little to help anyone and does no more to rectify a wrong (prehaps less) than jailing a murderer.

      How on earth are you going to "enforce rules to prevent wrong" without using punishment methods? You don't execute or jail a murderer in order to resurrect the people he killed; you execute/imprison him so that 1. he's unable to kill any more and 2. others are less likely t

    • Re:Makes You Wonder (Score:4, Funny)

      by ChrisA90278 (905188) on Wednesday February 14 2007, @03:10PM (#18015668)
      I've been running for president under the "common sense" party for years. I can solve ALL problems with simple common sense. For example crime: As you say, it is better to PREVENT the crime. So simple common sense says to put people in jail BEFORE they commit the crime. Gosh how easy was that! I'm for the death penalty too. We should execute people before they can murder someone. Prevention, that's the way to go.

      I have other common sense solutions to all the other problems too.

  • Payoff to the Lawyers (Score:5, Funny)

    by ATestR (1060586) on Wednesday February 14 2007, @02:26PM (#18015116) Homepage

    To be fair, the lawyers should have to take their cut in coupons for Microsoft products, just like everyone else will.

  • NAH! That's objective reporting at it's best. NO bias at ALL!

  • but the real winners will no doubt be the lawyers

    Isn't this always the case? I hate these lawsuits because the rich fat-cat lawyers make out and the real people that deserve something get like $10. No sh*t M$ is settling. They have to pay millions of dollars for thousands of dollars in product just because the lawyers litigated the case at 500 per hour. It just sucks, all the people involved as plaintiffs that essentially allow those blood suckers to make millions should get some sort of profit sharing, not just their $10 cut. And don't bitch abou

    • Not to defend the amount lawyers make, because it does seem a bit much, but isn't it also logical that a large group of people would go to law school, charge less, and take away an enormous amount of business? Even $10 an hour would make a large difference in big litigation. Maybe the market isn't clear, but there are market forces at work, even in litigation.
    • Where's Erin Brockovich when we need her?

      But seriously thats how these things SHOULD work, lawyers getting a few millions sure, but people actually getting what they deserve as well.

  • Class action lawsuits: welfare for lawyers (Score:5, Informative)

    by mschuyler (197441) on Wednesday February 14 2007, @02:37PM (#18015252) Homepage Journal
    Class action lawsuits are one of the most mis-used legal tactics in the country. Look at ANY class action lawsuit against ANY company. The 'remedy' afforded to consumers is on the same level as a few bucks in rebates: Most people don't bother with jumping through the hoops (and be sure and include the SKU from the inner flap of the outer box you just threw away and a certified copy of your birth certificate) and the companies know this. They don't amount to anything anyway. It's just an accountng trick. But the lawyers, oh, my goodness. Millions of dollars to the law firms for "all their hard work." What a crock. The kids of Iowa will see nothing tangible. /rant

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by nomadic (141991)
      Look at ANY class action lawsuit against ANY company. The 'remedy' afforded to consumers is on the same level as a few bucks in rebates

      Ok, you completely misunderstand what a class action is. It is not limited exclusively to consumers, or especially large numbers--you can have a class action on behalf of just a few people. And there have been plenty of class actions where class plaintiffs each recovered significant amounts of money. Just because something hasn't been reported on slashdot doesn't mean

    • Re:Class action lawsuits: welfare for lawyers (Score:4, Insightful)

      by gumbi west (610122) on Wednesday February 14 2007, @02:57PM (#18015488) Journal
      Here's the thing. Our market uses a capitalist market structure, so the firms that make the most money beat the other firms. Put another way, if there is a way to make more money, the contentious executive who is thinking of his shareholders will make the money (most MBA graduates say that the maximizing shareholder value is the primary focus of an employee).

      In light of this, when someone does something counter competitive, just taking money away from them helps quite a bit. Now we can argue about where it should go, but this is better than the other options (leaving the money with the company that swindled the consumer). Put another way, if one company starts to swindle and nothing happens, all competitors will either start to do the same or go out of business. Class action lawsuits provide some protection against that and are an overall boon for the consumer in net, if not in effect per lawsuit.

  • Good to know (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Wow, I never knew you could sue people if for overcharging. This is great. Now I am going to go sue that burger place i just ate at for charging me $10 for a burger, when it obviously should have cost six dollars (according to Carl's Jr.)

    And for some reason, I thought we won the cold war...
    • Terrible analogy. The fact that you have a choice to spend $10 or $6 on a burger means the price you paid was fair (if you thought the price was unfair, you would have gone elsewhere). Plainly, the more expensive burger joint thinks the merits of its burgers exceed those of the fast food joint's.

      In contrast, the very point of monopoly litigation is that the is nowhere else to go. No competition.
    • Wow, I never knew you could sue people if for overcharging.

      Dude, the lawsuit was supposed to have been not so much about overcharging but over the things they did and still do to allow the overcharging. Things, you know, like penalizing OEMs for installing alternate operating systems.

      I read some things that came out about Microsoft and Gates during the lawsuit and I came out thinking that Gates IS evil and his charity foundation has to be more about PR than actually helping someone else out, although they
  • Demanding $60 million from Microsoft is like Dr. Evil demanding ONE MILLION DOLLARS from the World's Leaders today. Bill Gates could probably find that much money just by scrounging around in the various couches in his mansion. That provides no incentive for the company to change its behavior. No... if you want them to take notice you need to ding them for THIRTY THREE BILLION DOLLARS! Mua ha ha ha ha ha ha haaaa!

  • Justice? There is only one kind of justice.... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by zappepcs (820751) on Wednesday February 14 2007, @02:44PM (#18015324) Journal
    that is when the people who are dissatisfied with MS and how the courts fail to create fair business practices from them all switch to Linux or Apple.... THAT would be justice

  • Real winners are Microsoft (Score:4, Interesting)

    by RyoShin (610051) <tukaro&gmail,com> on Wednesday February 14 2007, @02:53PM (#18015436) Homepage Journal

    but the real winners will no doubt be the lawyers
    Of course, but here Microsoft wins, too. The article doesn't say how the exact payment would be (the article says just "millions of dollars"), but we'll be conservative and say that Microsoft will have to pay out at least 50 million (if it were 100 million, they probably would have said "hundreds of millions"). A quick Google search says that their revenue is around 10 billion. That means they have to pay a half of a percent of their annual revenue. Looking at it another way, it will take them less than a week to recoup that.

    This is only a bit more of a punishment than the fine from the EU of a couple ten thousand dollars a day.

    And what else do they have to give out? More Microsoft products! Either a voucher, or software for schools. And from that comes support contracts, future upgrades, additional add-ons, all which will cost the schools and/or users additional money.

    Why do courts and defendants even allow this? If I cut myself with a razor because it was used shoddy construction and a blade wasn't secured properly, and sue the company, why would I want another razor from them? I may get the razor free, but I still wind up having to buy blades for it later.

    Granted, they aren't saying they don't want Windows, just that they were overcharged, but this still seems ludicrous.

  • The obvious next step (Score:4, Interesting)

    by frovingslosh (582462) on Wednesday February 14 2007, @02:54PM (#18015462)
    So when do we start the law suits against the lawyers who screw the average guy by filing lawsuits on their behalf and then making all the profits and getting us coupons? Seems like a lawsuit that the jury couldn't help but award to us.
  • Microsoft cannot begin to dream of reaching the level of evil that lawyers as a group have attained. You think the cost of having a Microsoft monopoly is high? Lawyers and legal organizations increase the cost of every single thing you ever bought in your life, from penny candy to auto insurance. They take a portion of every bit of money that changes hands for legal reasons, they siphon money off of broken families and child support settlements, and from birth death they get their cut every step of the way.
  • Anyone have the iowaconsumercase.org documents mirrored? The site now requires authentication.

  • Helping schoolkids? (Score:3, Informative)

    by Doctor Memory (6336) on Wednesday February 14 2007, @03:09PM (#18015658) Homepage

    the software giant will certainly be on the hook for millions of dollars, some of which may end up helping Iowa school kids
    Oh, yeah, Microsoft loves helping schools. I remember when I lived in Portland, Microsoft was incredibly helpful [computerworld.com].

    Actually, as it turned out, they were helpful — they helped spur the development of K12OS [k12os.org]...
  • What I thought was interesting is the claim that Windows adds $50 on average to the cost of a computer, pre-installed. First off, that's a lot less than the retail price. Second, regardless what you think of it, it's pretty cheap for a substantial piece of software that comes with installation and support.

  • As a citizen (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Maxo-Texas (864189) on Wednesday February 14 2007, @03:13PM (#18015718)
    these cases really upset me.
    I get mail all the time showing the lawyers are going to make 4 to 16 million dollars and as a member of the class I'll get less than a hundred bucks. I do not join the class. I know ultimately, i'm going to be paying higher prices because of this crap.

  • Minnesota Settlement... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Rick Richardson (87058) on Wednesday February 14 2007, @05:45PM (#18017518) Homepage
    02/13/2006 FUNDS RECEIVED *type: *DEPOSIT $251.00

    $251.00 is serious money from Microsoft Corp, NOT "Average consumers will probably end up with a few bucks or a coupon".

  • Aren't we all the cynical ones (Score:3, Funny)

    by smchris (464899) on Wednesday February 14 2007, @09:31PM (#18019570)
    The Minnesota settlement got my wife and me a refurb Epson 2400 scanner, a cheap HP inkjet (both linux compatible) and three LinuxStore "Tux" keyboards from Cheapbytes.

    I'll take it. But, yes, I would rather be using IBM OS/4 HyperDrive today.

    • But... but... it's the ultimate. No price is too high!
    • Personally I'd only pay that much for the eXtreme eDition! Ultimate. A kids toy I tell you...
      • Hah. The eXtreme eDition pales in comparison to the Home Equity Loan edition... That one even includes Microsoft Tax Manager that automatically redirects your income tax refunds to Redmond!

    • "Bet the states are licking their chops now... with Vista Ultimate pegged at 399.99. talk about overcharging."

      I doubt it would qualify. After all, there are three editions below it, each of which will successfully run the vast majority of Vista-compatible products. In no way are you forced to buy the top of the line. You'd have to argue they are overcharging for the "core" or basic product. Maybe they are, maybe they aren't. That's a different question.
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