Washington | Thursday
A coalition of consumer groups Wednesday charged that the new Microsoft Windows XP operating system would ”extend and deepen” the firm’s monopoly power and urged antitrust officials to focus on the software in the pending federal court case.
”Windows XP advances the company’s illegal anti-competitive practices and harms the nation’s consumers,” said the group, which includes Consumers Union and the Consumer Federation of America.
The system, due to be launched October 25, is controversial because it incorporates several programs such as media players and instant messaging that may harm competitors.
An appeals court on June 28 had upheld a finding that Microsoft acted as an illegal monopoly.
But it said the breakup of the company ordered last year by Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson was not justified by the evidence. The US government earlier this month abandoned its demand for a break-up of Microsoft and narrowed the scope of the case in an effort to resolve the case more quickly.
The consumer organisations sent a letter to the Department of Justice Antitrust Division and state attorneys general, calling for ”extensive conduct remedies” that would force Microsoft to remove programs found to be anti-competitive and retain court jurisdiction to break up the software giant if its conduct fails to comply with any settlement.
The groups also cited privacy concerns, saying that by incorporating the Passport authentication system, Microsoft will get a massive database of PC users.
”Microsoft intends to operate this service in an anti-consumer manner by linking who the consumer is to what the consumer does on the Internet,” the coalition statement said.
Mark Cooper of the Consumer Federation said that, with Passport, ”Microsoft is creating an entirely new basis of market power that would reside in the control of personal information.” – Sapa-AFP
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