Microsoft's latest legal woes began almost exactly five years ago, on 20 October 1997, when the DOJ accused the company of violating an earlier antitrust settlement that took effect in 1995. The allegations focused on a topic that was a hot issue at the time: the browser war between Netscape's Navigator browser and Microsoft's Internet Explorer. The DOJ's complaint claimed that Microsoft was about to begin telling computer makers that if they wanted Windows 95, they needed to install Internet Explorer 4.0. That legal attempt failed, with an appeals court rebuffing the argument that Microsoft violated the original settlement deal. The DOJ and the state attorneys general responded by filing a new lawsuit in May 1998. The case was assigned to US District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson, who eventually ordered that Microsoft be carved into two companies. But after Microsoft appealed, the US Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit upbraided Jackson for violating judicial codes of conduct by chatting with reporters, and it removed him from the case. The appeals court overturned the breakup order, but did agree with Jackson that Microsoft had violated antitrust laws and should be punished.
Think it's all over? The antitrust case against Microsoft can still go back the to Court of Appeals, and then there's the European Commission's investigation... See ZDNet UK's DoJ/Microsoft News Section for the latest headlines.
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