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US: This week marks 14th anniversary of landmark Microsoft antitrust ruling

By  |  April 3, 2014

On April 3, 2000, a federal judge made a landmark ruling against Microsoft deciding that the company violated antitrust law in requiring Windows users to use the Internet Explorer browser.

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    US District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson’s ruling followed his earlier findings, issued in 1999, that Microsoft had sought to abuse its dominance and retain its monopoly by crushing its Apple competition.

    The 2000 ruling was a pivotal role for the US Department of Justice, which brought the case against Microsoft in May of 1998. The DOJ claimed that Microsoft’s bundling of Windows and IE escalated what it called the “browser wars,” and that the company had illegally squeezed rival Web browsers from the market.

    It wasn’t until November 2001 that Microsoft finally reached a settlement with the DOJ, a move that earned criticism for being insufficient at curbing Microsoft’s anticompetitive practices.

    Full Content: Politico

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