Microsoft Settles Iowa Antitrust Case

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.'"

Laywers are the winners

[nurb432]

Well duh.. even the losing side's laywers get paid well.

Good to know

[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...

Justice? There is only one kind of justice....

[zappepcs]

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

Re:You're kidding, right?

[schwaang]

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.

Re:Class action lawsuits: welfare for lawyers

[gumbi west]

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.

Re:Laywers are the winners

[EggyToast]

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>

As a citizen

[Maxo-Texas]

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.

Re:wow

[KKlaus]

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.

Re:Class action lawsuits: welfare for lawyers

[Oddster]

You are absolutely, one-hundred percent wrong. Class action lawsuits in the United States are the most sane and civil form of business-consumer conflict resolution this world has ever seen, and are in fact the only way in this country for consumers to get justice against unsavory businesses. If you knew anything in detail about class action lawsuits, there is no way you would ever espouse the opinion you do, period. The only way you could be under this perception is that you have been reading about nothing more than high-profile lawsuits, from Big Media no less, which are geared solely towards sensationalism, not facts.

Or perhaps the next time a Dell laptop battery explodes on your lap, you'll call a plumber to fight for your compensation.

Re:wow

[EvilRyry]

Agreed. Grandparent really should be insightful. This certainly isn't the first time that Microsoft has been 'punished' by being forced to give away free products. In reality this just tightens their grip on the market. Especially when schools are involved.

Re:$60 Million? Oh Noes!

[Scudsucker]

Promised to give, you mean. And what he promises to do with the money in no way mitigates the way he got the money in the first place - it would be like saying Pablo Escobar should be free from criticism if he gave his money to AIDS and caner research. It's also worth pointing out that they are big backers of the Discovery Institute, who are big backers of forcing Intelligent Design into science classrooms.

Re:Laywers are the winners

[nomadic]

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.