When the U.S. government initially brought an antitrust case against Microsoft in 1998 at the behest of competitors Netscape and Sun, beltway types marvelled that Microsoft did not even have a lobbyist in DC. Somehow this technology company had become a huge corporation without playing the usual political game. Well, Microsoft has matured. (I’ve been trying to figure out the odd usage of “matured” by statist political pundits. Near as I can tell, it means “become thoroughly corrupted by politics”.)
Microsoft recently lost out in a bidding war to buy online advertising company DoubleClick. Google won (for a hefty $3.1 billion) and Microsoft has now learned what to do when you don’t get your way in the voluntary marketplace... Microsoft Urges Antitrust Officials to Scuttle DoubleClick Deal:
In an interview today, Bradford L. Smith, Microsoft’s general counsel, said that the purchase of DoubleClick by Google would “combine the two largest distributors of online advertising” and thus “substantially reduce competition in the advertising market on the Web.”
