[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 43 (Thursday, March 18, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Page S2923]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE MISGUIDED ANTITRUST CASE AGAINST MICROSOFT
Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, on Monday, my friend and colleague, the
senior Senator from Utah, Mr. Hatch, came to the floor to respond to a
statement that I gave a week or so earlier on the Justice Department's
misguided antitrust case against Microsoft.
Mr. President, this has become something of a habit for the Senator
from Utah and myself. We have debated that lawsuit since well before it
was commenced, more than a year ago.
I am happy to state that I want to start these brief remarks with two
points on which I find myself in complete agreement with Senator Hatch.
First, during a speech on Monday, he joined with me in asking that the
Vice President of the United States, Mr. Gore, state his position on
whether or not this form of antitrust action is appropriate. I centered
my own speech on the frequent visits the Vice President has made to the
State of Washington and his refusal to take any such position. The
Senator from Utah said:
Government should not exert unwarranted control over the
Internet, even if Vice President Gore thinks that he created
it.
I am delighted that the Senator from Utah has joined me in that
sentiment. Now there are at least two of us who believe that the Vice
President of the United States should make his views known on the
subject.
Secondly, the Senator from Utah, in dealing with the request by the
Department of Justice that it receive a substantial additional
appropriation for fiscal year 2000 for antitrust enforcement, stated
that he is concerned about the value thresholds in what is called the
Hart-Scott-Rodino legislation relating to mergers and feels that the
minimum size of those mergers should be moved upward to reflect
inflation in the couple of decades since that bill was passed,
therefore, questions at least some portion of the request for
additional appropriations on the part of the Antitrust Division.
As I have said before, I believe that it deserves no increase at all,
that the philosophy that it is following harasses the business
community unduly, and inhibits the continuation of the economic success
stories all across our American economy but particularly in computer
software.
Having said that, the Senator from Utah and I continue to disagree,
though I wish to emphasize that my primary disagreement is with the
Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice of the United States
and this particular lawsuit.
The disagreement really fundamentally comes down to one point:
Antitrust law enforcement should be followed for the benefit of
consumers. The Government of the United States has no business
financing what is essentially a private antitrust case. If there are
competitors of Microsoft who think they have been unsuccessful and wish
to finance their own antitrust lawsuits, they are entitled to do so.
The taxpayers of the United States, on the other hand, should not be
required to pay their money for what is a private dispute, primarily
between Netscape and Microsoft.
That remains essentially the gravamen of the antitrust action that
the Justice Department in 19 States is prosecuting at the present time.
There is only the slightest lip service given in the course of that
lawsuit or by the senior Senator from Utah to consumer benefit. This is
not surprising, Mr. President, because there is no discernible consumer
benefit in the demands of this lawsuit.
Consumers have been benefited by the highly competitive nature of the
software market. They are benefited by having the kind of platform that
Microsoft provides for thousands of different applications and uses on
the part of hundreds of different companies all through the United
States.
This is not a consumer protection lawsuit. I may say, not entirely in
passing, that I know a consumer protection lawsuit when I see one. I
was attorney general of the State of Washington for 12 years. I
prosecuted a wide range of antitrust and consumer protection lawsuits.
But every one of those antitrust cases was based on the proposition
that consumers were being disadvantaged by some form of price fixing or
other violation of the law. I did not regard it as my business to
represent essentially one business unhappy and harmed by competition
for a more effective competitor.
The basis of my objection to this lawsuit is that it is not designed
for consumer protection. It is designed to benefit competitors. Some of
the proposals that have appeared in the newspapers for remedies in case
of success, including taking away the intellectual properties of the
Microsoft Corporation, perhaps even breaking it up, requiring advance
permission on the part of lawyers in the Justice Department for
improvements in Windows or in any other product of the Microsoft
Corporation, are clearly anticonsumer in nature.
The lawsuit is no better now than the day on which it was brought. It
is not designed to benefit consumers. It ought to be dropped.
I am delighted that at least on two peripheral areas of sometime
controversy, the Senator from Utah and I now find ourselves in
agreement. Regrettably, we still find ourselves disagreeing on the
fundamental basis of the lawsuit. I am sorry he is on the apparent side
of the Vice President of the United States and the clear side of the
Department of Justice of the United States.
I expect this debate to continue, but I expect it to continue to be
on the same basis. Do we have a software system, a computer system in
the United States which is the wonder of the world that has caused more
profound and more progressive changes in our society than that caused
in a comparable period of time by any other industry, or somehow or
another do we have an industry that needs Government regulation? I
think that question answers itself, Mr. President, and I intend to
continue to speak out on the subject.
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