Ashcroft and James made me cringe when I heard them at the press conference announcing the settlement.

[link|http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/public/press_releases/2001/9463.htm|Here] at the US DOJ.

"This settlement will promote innovation, give consumers more choices, and provide the computer industry as a whole with more certainty in the marketplace," said Charles A. James, Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division. "The goals of the government were to obtain relief that stops Microsoft from engaging in unlawful conduct, prevent any recurrence of that conduct in the future, and restore competition in the software market\ufffdwe have achieved those goals."


Innovation made me cringe. [link|http://www.usdoj.gov/ag/speeches/2001/1102newsconference.htm|Here] is a transcript of the announcement.

Maybe it's an attempt to turn MS's language against it, but it still raised red flags with me.

I doubt that Ashcroft had much to do with the agreement. I expect he was pretty far removed from it - he's tied up with other things now.

But the language seems consistent with Ashcroft's views, as experessed in [link|http://www.stauffercom.com/letter3.html|this] 1998 letter.

Cheers,
Scott.