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“THE MISGUIDED ANTITRUST CASE AGAINST MICROSOFT” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Justice was published in the Senate section on pages S2923 on March 18, 1999.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
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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