According to the article "U.S. Justice Department attempts to rein in Microsoft" in Information Intelligence Online Newsletter, The main complaint is that Microsoft was illegally forcing retailers to bundle Microsoft programs with new PC's or else they would not grant them official retailer licenses. The biggest complaint was that Microsoft was designing windows with an already incorporated web browser, taking away customers from Netscape and its navigator web browser.

In October of 1998 Microsoft was taken to the US court on charges of violating the Sherman Antitrust act of 18

Despite MSN's failure, however, allowing Microsoft to compete in the market for online services produced enormous benefits for consumers. When MSN was introduced, AOL was charging $54.20 for 20 hours of use a month. MSN was priced at $19.95 for that same amount of time. Thanks in part to the competition created by MSN, AOL eventually dropped its price to between $19.95 and $24.95 for unlimited use, and most other online services and Internet service providers followed suit. The same story of falling prices and rising usage has been repeated in virtually every area where Microsoft's entry was predicted to reduce competition and harm consumers. (28-35)

90, This was the first time that Microsoft had actually been formally charged of being a monopoly that hurt US consumers. The trial was drawn out and went through many appeals from both Microsoft and the FTC before it would come to an end. After 76 days of testimony lasting nearly eight months, the trial adjured on June 24, 1999. On November 5, 1999 Judge Thomas Jackson issued his initial findings of fact. He found that Microsoft held monopoly power and used its power to harm consumers, rivals, and other companies. Microsoft had finally been convicted of being a monopoly; in response Microsoft filed an appeal to try to get the case thrown out for various reasons. The biggest of those being the merger between Time-Warner and AOL. Microsoft's argument was that the government was allowing two large corporations to merge but they are punishing Microsoft for simply growing. The Government set out to figure out how it wanted Microsoft to be punished. According to the timeline, on June 7th judge Jackson ordered that Microsoft be broken up. Soon after Microsoft appealed the case to the US Supreme court. The Supreme Court refused to hear the case. Then nearly a year after the break up was ordered a federal appeals court reversed the ruling on the breakup. On September 6th 2001 the US Government announced that it would no longer seek the breakup of Microsoft Corp. and that it wanted to seek a quick resolution to the case. (Wired news) Those are the facts of the case and now you can have a rough idea of what all of the fuss is about.

Microsoft was the victim of a witch-hunt by the US Government and Microsoft is one of a few companies that have been convicted of being too successful. Microsoft's "monopolistic practices" have helped the economy and made the high tech world a lot more accessible to the everyday consumer

Some common words found in the essay are:
Microsoft Microsoft, MSN AOL, Microsoft AT&T, Navigator Netscape, Online Newsletter, Thomas Jackson, Explorer Microsoft, Despite MSN's, Chairman Continental, Justice Department, web browser, presence market, windows 95, breakup microsoft, microsoft microsoft, microsoft's presence market, allowing microsoft, netscape navigator, online services, kopel bast, internet explorer,
Approximate Word count = 1672
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)