Microsoft Must Hand Over E-Mail

Fri., Jan. 29, 1999

From Staff

The judge who will decide the Microsoft antitrust trial ordered the company on Thursday to surrender a contested e-mail that threatens to undermine one of its legal arguments.

The internal e-mail from a software engineer in October 1998 explains in unprecedented detail some of the ways Microsoft combined its Internet browser software into its dominant Windows operating system. The government charges the combination amounts to illegal “tying” under federal antitrust law.

The government said the e-mail supports claims that Microsoft can easily identify which parts of shared computer code relate to Windows and which parts relate to its browser, a necessary distinction if it were ordered to separate the products.

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Microsoft Must Hand Over E-Mail

Jesse Tinsley

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