Expect a raft of new antitrust cases — including some that are utterly without merit, as public-relations people are trained to say — against Microsoft now that a federal judge has declared the company to be a monopoly. That judicial finding greatly eases the burden for anyone bringing such a case.
One especially interesting antitrust suit has been brewing for some time now. It was brought by Caldera Inc. over a long-moribund operating system called DR DOS, which was in many ways better than Microsoft’s MS-DOS but got squashed by you know who. I talk about this and other things in Tuesday’s column.
Taipei
I’ve been meeting with some technology folks here in Taiwan’s capital. They’re full of energy and ambition, just like the people in another place I know.
Taipei is a frenetic place. The traffic reminds me of Tel Aviv, Israel, where the morning and evening rush hours are mind-boggling and make Silicon Valley’s congestion seem almost moderate.
As a result, motor scooters and motorcycles seem to be the most popular way to get around. But the people who drive these things take incredible chances. Each of my last four taxi rides involved a near-collision when a motorcyclist went this-a-way while traffic was heading that-a-way. Scary.
Taipei suffered relatively little harm in the terrible September earthquake, but the southern part of the island was mauled. I won’t have the opportunity to visit the worst-hit places, but the quake remains on people’s minds in a serious way. Taiwan has gotten itself back in gear quickly as a whole, but for many thousands of people the return to normal life will be long and difficult.
TRUSTe? Strike Five
TRUSTe presents itself as a steward of Web privacy for consumers. Based on the record so far, the organization gets a failing grade.
In the latest example, TRUSTe again finds itself mostly helpless in the face of a member’s egregious violation of its customers’ privacy. You’ll recall that RealNetworks, without telling customers, was using its RealJukebox player to surreptitiously send information on users’ music-listening habits back to the company’s computers. A huge error, said RealNetworks, which had boasted the TRUSTe seal denoting solid privacy practices.
TRUSTe basically ducked again, saying RealNetworks’ violation technically didn’t violate TRUSTe’s guidelines. The organization did persuade RealNetworks to try to do a better job in the future.
I still like the idea of TRUSTe, but increasingly it’s clear that we also need privacy-enhancing laws, not just self-regulation that Net companies flout with impunity.