Week 11

Microsoft is the ultimate technology company success story, from start-up to the company with the largest market capitalization of any company in the world within less than two decades. If any company has succeeded in cornering the markets for control, it's Microsoft. Indeed, according to the United States Department of Justice and at least one federal judge, they succeeded too well. The Microsoft case continues to unfold with enormous potential implications for the law of cyberspace as well as antitrust law in general.

In this class we ask whether the Microsoft case is just another antitrust case -- or whether it illustrates the ways in which one can't just apply old laws to the Net by adding an e- in front. We'll also look at Microsoft's .NET initiative, and the Cassandra-like worries already coalescing around it.

Readings:

• Jonathan Zittrain, "The Un-Microsoft Un-Remedy: Law Can Prevent the Problem That It Can't Patch Later," 31 Connecticut L. Rev. 1361 (1999)
• US v. Microsoft: Timeline
• Microsoft .NET homepage
• Skim: A revised proposed Final Judgment to resolve the United States' civil antitrust case against Microsoft
• Microsoft case home page
• CCIA expresses concern with the Proposed Settlement in the Microsoft/MDL case 

Thursday class at MIT: The Cryptography Debate (Abelson)

Slides from class (PDF)

Today, we'll be discussing the history of government attempts to control encryption. There are no assigned readings, but skim the class archive on Encryption and National Security.