The Gnat versus the Borg [Microsoft]

This month's Micro Law continues the discussion begun in the last issue, that topic being the contempt of court case against Microsoft that the US Justice Department (DOJ) brought in October 1997. Part I described the background of the present case, and the evidence on whether Microsoft has been coercively packaging Internet Explorer (IE) with Win 95 to swallow up the Internet browser market. Part I concluded that it should be difficult for the DOJ ultimately to persuade the court that the antitying clause of the 1996 consent judgment in US v. Microsoft covers what Microsoft has been doing with IE. It also suggested that the DOJ will probably need to bring a new antitrust case to combat these practices.