According to a report in the Washington Post, lobbyists working for Microsoft Corp have pressed Congress to reduce next year’s funding allocation for the antitrust division of the US Department of Justice. Several of the nonprofit organizations which are funded by Microsoft – arguably for this very purpose – have urged congressional appropriators to reduce the division’s budget. That the signatories did so after Microsoft treated them to an all-expenses paid trip to the Capitol may tend to soil their credibility a little. The Post points out that Microsoft’s efforts will have little or no effect on the antitrust trial now being decided by Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson. What, then, could have prompted this latest effort to cut off an antagonist’s air supply?
