A feature has just been added which enables you to receive E-mail notifications of new comments in any item found in this Web site. You can find this feature below the "comments" box. This should hopefully assist tracking of your comments. Due to experimentation with different versions of the software, some 'oopsies' were part of this installation process. If the site seems a little flaky or if you spot an error, please let us know.

In the mean time, here's an interesting nugget of information that has just come to our attention. We mentioned this document the other day, but the following bits of text are very telling and quoteworthy.

On April 20, 2007, at the ABA Antitrust Section’s Spring Meeting in Washington, Commission Kroes was asked what the Commission has learned about remedies from its experience in Microsoft. After first saying that the Commission had “never before” encountered a company that had refused to comply with its order, she said that the Commission would need to consider when “structural remedies would be more appropriate or even necessary.” For example, she said, “there could be a situation in which a dominant company has repeatedly abused its dominant position. Or where it has consistently failed to comply with a behavioural remedy despite repeated enforcement action.”11

It sounds to me as though Commissioner Kroes has now learned what Judge Jackson learned over the course of the U.S. monopolization trial. Microsoft’s unwillingness to comply with court-ordered remedies, plus its pattern of exclusionary conduct, indicated that conduct remedies alone would not likely be effective. An effective remedy would need to change Microsoft’s economic incentives. This was the key insight of the restructuring remedy originally proposed by the Justice Department and the states, and adopted by Judge Jackson. That remedy was never imposed—new leaders took over at the Department of Justice and the parties entered into a conduct settlement. Unfortunately, Europe has repeated the U.S. history, with similar results.

The American Antitrust Institute is now aware of the issue. Remedies are hopefully on their way.