FTC Attorney Joins Microsoft 123
inode_buddha writes "Randall Long, a senior attorney who led several antitrust investigations against Google, has been hired by Microsoft. From the article: 'The software giant told the Wall Street Journal yesterday that it hired Randall Long, an official at the FTC's Bureau of Competition. When he joins the software giant at the end of the month, Long will head up Microsoft's regulatory affairs division in Washington.
Long was involved in FTC reviews of Google's acquisitions of both DoubleClick and AdMob. According to the Journal's unnamed sources, Long was especially outspoken about Google's AdMob acquisition, saying that the FTC should challenge the deal. His reservations were eventually set aside and the deal was approved in 2010.'"
Re:First post! (Score:5, Interesting)
M$ still sucks ass!
Just another reason for the separation of Corporation and State.
Re:First post! (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Fascism/Classic_Friendly_Fascism.html [thirdworldtraveler.com]
Re:Job over? (Score:3, Interesting)
Perhaps he wanted an employer who would agree with his distrust of Google.
Is he likely to have privileged knowledge? (Score:5, Interesting)
IANAL, so I have no idea how likely this is, but -- is it possible that he's seen sealed testimony or other privileged information that could be damaging to Google, and would otherwise not be directly accessible to Microsoft?
Re:Job over? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Little mystery here... (Score:5, Interesting)
Little mystery indeed,
We have been joking here on Slashdot about a famous outburst of chair throwing, and about Steve Ballmer yelling that he was fucking going to kill Google. He, however, was not joking.
Microsoft has been beaten up over anti-competitive / anti-trust practices many times in many jurisdictions.
And when he uttered that famous sentence, in what way do you think Ballmer was dreaming of killing a company having earned respect among web users and having as a motto "Don't be evil", if not in pulling Google down in the dirty pool of consumer hate Microsoft was drowning itself? Has anyone not noticed the intense PR campaign-war that has been waged against Google since then, even on Slashdot, and the intense sock-puppeting and shilling each time a Google story comes up?
Revolving door (Score:4, Interesting)
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolving_door_(politics) [wikipedia.org] :
In politics, the "revolving door" is the movement of personnel between roles as legislators and regulators and the industries affected by the legislation and regulation. In some cases the roles are performed in sequence but in certain circumstances may be performed at the same time. Political analysts claim that an unhealthy relationship can develop between the private sector and government, based on the granting of reciprocated privileges to the detriment of the nation and can lead to regulatory capture.
It certainly appears to be corruption (Score:5, Interesting)
Ronald Reagan insists that US markets stay open to Japan, while Japanese markets are closed to the US. US loses massive market share to Japan. Reagan gets out of office, and immediately flies to Japan to pick up a $2 million "speakers fee."
Absolutely no "proof" of corruption. But what does it look like?
If the corruption could be actually proven, it would never had happened.
Same idea here. A government official mysteriously takes an extremely strong stance against a rival of a company that has been caught red-handed bribing officials. Now that official is suddenly working for the company the official helped. It stinks to high heaven, and we both know it.
More MS "Tonya Harding" tactics against Google (Score:5, Interesting)
Microsoft internal document
“Working behind the scenes to orchestrate “independent” praise of our technology, and damnation of the enemy’s, is a key evangelism function during the Slog. “Independent” analyst’s report should be issued, praising your technology and damning the competitors (or ignoring them). “Independent” consultants should write columns and articles, give conference presentations and moderate stacked panels, all on our behalf (and setting them up as experts in the new technology, available for just $200/hour). “Independent” academic sources should be cultivated and quoted (and research money granted). “Independent” courseware providers should start profiting from their early involvement in our technology. Every possible source of leverage should be sought and turned to our advantage.”
http://techrights.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/comes-3096.pdf
How not to win friends and influence people
Mar 2nd 2012
The bland-sounding ICOMP [ Initiative for a Competitive Online Marketplace] is openly funded by Microsoft (among others), whose search engine, Bing, competes with Google's. ICOMP’s homepage is littered with attacks on the search giant: “Google’s new privacy policy: unlawful and unfair”; “Google caught with its hands in the cookie jar”; “‘Unfair and unwise’: Google implements new privacy policy despite calls to delay”. Burson-Marsteller acts as the secretariat for ICOMP. Readers may remember the outfit from past flops such as the campaign against Google on behalf of Facebook.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2012/03/microsoft-v-google
Re:Graft (Score:3, Interesting)
The only part they're hiding is that he worked for M$ from the start. Now he just gets a title and salary.
Interesting thing about MS in this context is that they (Bill Gates) a long time ago first wanted nothing to do with Washington or politics at all, unlike most large companies they did not fund or lobby, and Gates was described as openly indifferent to politicians, even when accused, which pissed Washington off. Many who followed this closely commented that Microsoft most likely got a harder antitrust treatment than they otherwise would have because of distancing themselves from politics+money this way - and they have since changed their ways, and are now lobbying and funding etc like the rest of large corporations (and yeah.. Slashdot might want to argue how hard the antitrust treathment should be, that is not the point here).