Bonum Certa Men Certa

The Continued Effect of Microsoft Antitrust Violations

Mississippi old building



Summary: Citizens are urged to claim compensation from Microsoft; federal Web sites still reject non-Microsoft Web browsers

MICROSOFT'S settlement in Mississippi is a subject that we wrote about in [1, 2]. There's more news on the subject as a deadline approaches and we know from experience that Microsoft relies on people being too apathetic (or insufficiently informed) to make appropriate claims. This way, Microsoft keeps the 'crime money' in the bank.

Mississippi residents have until Oct. 16 to submit claims under the state's settlement of a lawsuit with Microsoft.

The state received $40 million from the settlement, and another $60 million was set aside for people, schools and businesses to make claims.

[...]

To receive vouchers, people must have purchased certain licensed Microsoft software, or a personal computer with certain Microsoft software installed on it, for use in Mississippi between January 1, 1996 and June 11, 2009. Hood says many schools and small businesses may also be eligible.

Claim forms are available at http://www.agjimhood.com.


The site uses PDF as its preferred format and Pamela Jones at Groklaw complains that a government Web site is still "Asking for IE or *Netscape*." Several days ago she wrote: "I was looking for information on the H1N1 flu vaccination, to try to decide whether or not to get the shot or take my chances. There is some unknowable, so far, risk of adverse responses, as usual, and so the CDC and FDA have set up a site where you can report any such reactions, so they can track it. It's called VAERS, or the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. You can fill in the form online. But believe it or not, they suggest Internet Explorer or Netscape. If you recall, the exact same problem came up when we were invited to a conference on technology. Folks, please, seriously, update that page that so that Firefox is included, at least, so people using operating systems other than Microsoft Windows can easily access and report. Who uses Netscape? This is important. We're talking about people's lives. Thank you."

This is what one gets when Microsoft commits crime to drive browser competition out of business. One of the people who were on this case at the time is now being interviewed by Mercury News and a similar issue crops up in India:

US Visa application not possible if you use free software!



I wanted to go to the international conference on semantic web to be held in October 2009 near Washington. So I try to apply for US visa. There seems to be no way for a person to apply for US visa without using MS Internet Explorer. Firefox/Mozilla based browsers don’t work. In protest to this unfair practice, I have written the following open letter to the Ambassador of United States in India.


It's amazing, isn't it? Are we back in the 1990s?

It is worth remembering that US visas are Microsoft's turf, which is only typical in a system of big egos and hot air.

Global CIO: Ballmer Blasts IBM For All The Wrong Reasons



If Steve Ballmer really believes his comments that IBM has short-changed its shareholders by selling off low-margin hardware businesses, and that IBM's product line is more "narrow" now than ever before, then Ballmer's strategy as laid out in his "New Efficiency" letter this morning makes absolutely no sense.


As a side note, Microsoft issued this unusual press release maybe in order to defend and promote its increasing proximity to the banking sector (the Citibank relationship gets tighter). It earns some free publicity for Microsoft which actually paid for it, passing it as "public service" and meanwhile at the SEC Microsoft is mentioned in a fraud case.

U.S. securities regulators charged virtual reality company 3001 AD on Tuesday with bilking $20 million from investors by fabricating plans for an initial public offering and falsely claiming support from tech giants Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) and Apple Inc (AAPL.O).


Microsoft had its own share of fraud investigations with the SEC [1, 2].

Misconduct

Recent Techrights' Posts

Datamation, Where I Used to Publish Articles, Appears to Have Been Sold to TechnologyAdvice Only to Become a Slopfarm
I'd prefer to not associate with that site anymore
 
How Software Patents Were Viewed or Their General Status Changed Over Time
A rough summary
We Are Turning 19 in One Month, FSF Turns 40 in 3 Hours (CET)
For our anniversary next month we still have no concrete plans
Patent Docs (or PatentDocs) Learned the Wrong Lessons From the Death of TypePad
Had they gone ahead with an SSG, they'd become a lot more future-proof
USPTO Patent Bubble Already Imploding, After Decades of Artificial Inflation, Entire Offices Close for Good
we can deduce that financial pressures (lack of "demand" for monopolies) play a role
TikTok is Not Harmless (Being CheeTok in the US Will Advance Orange Agenda)
Social control media isn't "fun and games"; it's a digital weapon that lets hostile groups or nations infiltrate others, then turn them against themselves
Andy Farnell and Helen Plews Explain What "Modern" Tech Does to Old People
Imposing terrible tech "religion" on people is not helping them
Tomorrow the Free Software Foundation (FSF) Turns 40 and Its Web Site is Still Slow Due to DDoS by LLM Slop Bots
For an advocacy group, uptime is important (for its message to remain accessible)
Slopwatch: Google News as a Firehose of LLM Slop About "Linux"
Google News is really bad
Links 03/10/2025: "NPR’s Economics Lessons Come With Neoliberal Spin" and Canada Post at Risk
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/10/2025: Panic Attacks and Food Adulteration
Links for the day
Links 03/10/2025: Lawyers Caught Using LLM Slop Explain Why They Did It, LibreSSL 4.1.1 and 4.0.1 Released
Links for the day
FSF Board Grew 50% Since Last Year, Has New President, Turns 40 in Two Days
It's a good move for the FSF and - by extension - for software freedom
Links 03/10/2025: Conflicts, Death of TypePad, and TikTok/CheeTok Gives a Boost to Far Right Groups in Europe
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 02, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 02, 2025
Slopwatch: Linux Journal, Google News, and LinuxSecurity
They carry on polluting the Web with fake articles
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: Kubernetes With FreeBSD and robots.txt
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: 'Open' 'AI' Resorting to Gimmicks and Fake Funding, Europe’s ‘Drone Wall’ Discussed
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: Brave Passes 100M Users Milestone, Kodak Selling Its Own Film Again
Links for the day
Michael “Monty” Widenius: It Started in 1983 With Richard Stallman (RMS)
The other co-founder of MySQL is a bit notorious for confronting RMS rather viciously
For the Second Time in a Few Weeks Microsoft Lunduke Makes False Accusations Against Senior Red Hat Staff to Incite a Despicable 'Troll Army'
Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims of says can be trusted
su lisa && rm -rf /home/ibm/power
Novell was ruined by another person from IBM, Ronald Hovsepian
A Record Demand at Microsoft: Demand to Cancel
What we're witnessing is a very ungraceful destruction of XBox
Microsoft is Losing Europe
Hence all the "support" and "discount" offers that are limited to Europe
The Free Software Foundation Starts Fund-raising for 40th Anniversary
New pop-up 2-3 days ahead of the 40th anniversary event
Systemd Breaks Networking in Debian and Microsoft Staff Rushes to Make Face-Saving Excuses in LWN
Microsoft's bluca is already there in the comments, his Microsoft money pays for LWN to let him leave comments early
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 01, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 01, 2025
What the End of XBox Will Look Like: a Fiery Crash
XBox is the next Skype. It won't last much longer. Expect many more layoffs.
Richard Stallman is Going to Finland to Give a Talk Next Thursday
A day later he speaks in Sweden
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: SMTP Pipelining and End of ROOPHLOCH 2025
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Plagiarism, Fake Articles, and FUD About Linux
not a day goes by without Google News feeding FUD from slopfarms
Gemini Links 01/10/2025: Chat Control and End of Life
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: Long Covid Risk Reiterated, "Bitcoin Queen" Caught
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: EA $55 Billion Deal is Debt and Slop "Raises Vishing Risks"
Links for the day
Bluewashing at Red Hat Means Redundancies
The man who sold Red Hat to IBM meanwhile became a Microsoft Mono booster
After Killing OpenSource.com, IBM ('Red Hat') and OSI Told Us OpenSource.net Would Replace It (But That Didn't Happen)
Now it's time to move on, perhaps tarnishing the "Open Source" label some more (for whatever sponsor wants this)
Linux is Not a Community Project, It's a Wall Street Product
The core goal should be freedom
Bad Actors Abusing the Free Software Community, Vandalising It Using Rogue Politics and Old Tactics
Oil giants have long attempted to do this; now, the digital equivalent of Big Oil does this in technology
Social Control Media Isn't the Future, The Federation or Fediverse Isn't Growing, People's Accounts Vanish for Good
users' accounts will get deleted, not just become inactive
IBM is Failing, This Helps Show Wall Street is Entirely Detached From Actual Commercial Performance
IBM is unable to grow, it's just constantly shrinking
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 30, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 30, 2025
Clerical Aspects of Publishing and Development
In Free software, the management aspects are considerably reduced
Slopwatch: Fake Articles and Google News Promoting "Linux" Spam or Bot-Generated Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD)
These slopfarms help misplace blame
Third Wave of Microsoft Layoffs in September, This Time Many in Liverpool Affected
Be ready for more waves of layoffs ahead of the so-called "results" in late October