Bonum Certa Men Certa

States Are in Huge Debt, But Microsoft Keeps 'Crime Money' in Bank

"Government attorneys accuse Microsoft of using its monopoly position to bully, bribe and attempt to collude with others in the industry, while illegally expanding and protecting its Windows franchise."

--The antitrust case: a timeline



There is a lot of despairing news for Microsoft at the moment, so be prepared for many posts containing many references. The first one is yet another eye opener about a subject that we covered last month.



Microsoft engaged in illegal activities and was ultimately requested to pay compensation to schools in the State of California. But it's rather outrageous that while poverty spreads and Microsoft is burning up its remaining cash reserves, the money it owes schools remains almost untouched in its bank account. Here is a new article that protests against it.

It's a windfall for California public schools: a $250 million grant from Microsoft for new computers, software and training, part of a $1.1-billion class-action lawsuit settlement against the company.

[...]

But two years later, nearly 80 percent of the money is still in the vault, unclaimed by California schools. Only a few Kern County school districts have started cashing in.

The Panama-Buena Vista Union School District has had more than $519,000 of the pool set aside in its name, but, according to the settlement administrator's Web site, the money is still sitting there.

Ditto for some of Kern County's smaller districts: Mojave Unified ($147,837), Buttonwillow ($19,305) and General Shafter ($15,240) haven't dipped into their share of the settlement money.

It's important that they take advantage of the settlement, and not just for the most obvious reasons. The state's schools will eventually receive an even larger payout once a final part of the lawsuit is settled, but state attorneys might not be as motivated to pursue it while the original pot remains so full.


"What a scam," says one of our readers. "First the delay of many years and then the whittling down of a $1.1 billion settlement to a paltry $0.250 billion."

This isn't the first such article and it is a total disaster for the juridical system. The state was entitled to this compensation years ago, but the money just keeps sitting in Microsoft's bank account. In some cases, the money is used up by purchasing more licences for copies of software from Microsoft (i.e. the abused paying the abuser again), but in other cases this money is being used to install GNU/Linux on new PCs in Californian schools. Christian Einfeldt and others are leaders of this effort, but remain just few among this cause.

Another case of abused Microsoft customers is China where black screens of death struck the nation, then leading to lawsuits against Microsoft for intrusion and sabotage of people's personal computers. There is an update on this in the Financial Times for those who are interested in finer details and progress.

When Microsoft rolled out its latest anti-piracy initiative this year, it was not aimed at any particular country. Windows Genuine Advantage, a tool that identifies users of counterfeit software and pushes them to buy the real thing, was launched worldwide in several geographical blocs.

But Microsoft ran into trouble when the roll-out hit China last month. While users in other markets kept silent when hit by one of WGA’s more extreme features, a mechanism that blackens the desktop background on computers found to be using counterfeit Windows, their Chinese peers broke into a storm of anger, forcing Microsoft officials in the country into damage control mode.


Lastly, it was only a week ago that we explained why Microsoft is now abusing some of its most effective distributors. Microsoft needs cash. We used China as a specific example from the news and now there are some more cases and coverage in the United States, e.g.

1. Microsoft wins lawsuit

TULSA, Okla. (AP) - A Tulsa business is being ordered to pay Microsoft Corp. nearly $1 million in damages in a copyright infringement lawsuit.


2. Microsoft Wins Copyright-Infringement Suit Vs Okla Co -Report

U.S. District Judge Terence Kern issued a written order Thursday in which he found that Microsoft was owed $970,000 in damages and $25,182.25 in attorney fees in its civil lawsuit against James Dignan and his company, AllPro Computer and Gaming, the report said.


To summarise, Microsoft is getting aggressive and is now asserting its full rights to be paid for copies of its software while at the same time failing to pay Californian schools for the crime it committed, just as it does not pay tax in India, among other places.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Links 10/06/2025: Jaws at 50 and US Democracy Crushed Very Rapidly (Martial Law Seems Imminent)
Links for the day
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part VII: Washing Their Hands After Corruption and Abuse
"Tragedy or comedy?"
Culling Bad RSS Feeds of Bad Sites
Not throwing out the baby with the bathwater
Live as You Preach
technology is fast becoming dysphoric
 
Links 10/06/2025: Apple Hype and Physical Attacks on Bloggers
Links for the day
Gemini Links 10/06/2025: Loon Lake, Farming, and Forth
Links for the day
If 'Microsoft v Techrights' is Dealt With by a 'Microsoft Court' (or a Court Outsourced to Microsoft)
More on that later
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, June 09, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, June 09, 2025
Gemini Protocol Turns Six in 10 Days From Now
If you haven't tried it yet, then give it a go today
Gemini Links 09/06/2025: Addition Addiction and Nitride
Links for the day
Links 09/06/2025: Science, Hardware Projects, and Democracy Receding
Links for the day
Computers Got Smaller, So GNU/Linux Got Bigger
Many people here recognise the lack of urgency (or need) to get expensive new laptops
BetaNews is a Plagiarism and LLM Slop Hub, the Chief Editor Isn't Addressing This Problem Anymore
SS Fagioli is basically a parasite leeching off or exploiting other people's work
Links 09/06/2025: Chaos in Los Angeles and Hurricane Season
Links for the day
GNU/Linux Grows at Windows' Expense and Microsoft Trolls Infest and Maliciously Target Articles About It
Microsoft is - and has long been - organised crime
They Say I'm Mr. Bombastic
They didn't take good lawyers
Links 09/06/2025: Windows TCO and Many Data Breaches
Links for the day
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part VI: Political Stunts by Former President Edyta Demby-Siwek and the Connection to Profound Corruption at EUIPO
it's like a money-laundering operation where one politician rewards another at taxpayers' expense
Gemini Links 09/06/2025: Pipelines and Splitgate
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, June 08, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, June 08, 2025
Links 08/06/2025: Tiananmen Carnage Censorship Persists, North Korean Goes Offline
Links for the day
Gemini Links 08/06/2025: Love as an Ethnographic Method and Monitorix Gemini-Frontend v0.1
Links for the day
Links 08/06/2025: Exposure of More GAFAM Surveillance and Social Security Records Compromised
Links for the day
Linux Foundation is a Mediator for Microsoft et al, Not for Small Companies That Support Rather Than Attack the GPL
Many people still wrongly assume that because it is called "Linux Foundation", then it is pro-Linux and represents the same mindset
This Past Friday, Confirming What We Said All Along About Brett Wilson LLP: It's Shrinking, Has Considerable Debt, Loss of Net Assets Despite the Microsoft SLAPP Money
The documents only became publicly available less than 2 days ago
Some of the Many Reasons We Sued Microsofters for Harassment
perpetrators of harassment
For 20 Years Many People Were Sharecropping for Canonical's Oligarch, Now He's Deleting All Their Contributions
"Ubuntu has erased instead of archiving the trove of material at Ubuntu Forums"
There Was Always Too Much 'Crazy Stuff' Going on Around Freenode
What many IRC users lost sight of
Exposing Crime is Not a Crime (It Never Was)
In the eyes of rich and powerful people, those who speak about their crimes are the "criminals"
GNU/Linux Distros Abandoning Microsoft GitHub
Will curl be next to leave Microsoft GitHub?
Expect More XBox Mass Layoffs Soon If the Rumours Are True
From a Microsoft media operative
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, June 07, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, June 07, 2025
Europe Needs to Move Away From GAFAM; The Sooner, the Better
Europe - not just the EU - must abandon GAFAM as soon as possible
The Issue Isn't GNOME's Promotion of Diversity But GNOME Corruption, Abuse, Censorship, and Worse
So-called "Conservative" (republican, pro-Trump, bigoted) people want you to think the problem with GNOME is politics
When the News Sources Become Scarce and Increasingly Full of Polluted/Contaminated 'Content' (With LLM Slop and Slop Images)
Integrity matters
"Linux" Sites That Spew Out LLM Slop
We're lacking enough material for another "Slopwatch"
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part V: Breaking the Law, Just Like EPO
We'll hopefully cover some of the pertinent details later this year