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The plague of junk e-mail: How do we stop it? All suggestions welcome in Digital Culture.

D A I L Y+Q U O T E
Pushing Ellen back in the closet

R E C E N T L Y
The racial promise
By Andres Tapia and Rodolpho Carrasco
Are Promise Keepers the new leaders of the civil rights movement?
(10/09/97)
The Teamsters scandal
By David Corn
Liberals lose, GOP drools
(10/08/97)
Bibi the bungler
By Jonathan Broder
The botched Mossad attempt to assassinate a Hamas leader
(10/07/97)
A smack of Weimar
By A. Clay Thompson
In the streets of Germany, Europe's young new brownshirts are beating, murdering and setting fires
(10/06/97)
A killer site
By David Cassel
After AOL shut down a Web site devoted to the musings of serial killers, free speech advocates helped to get the site back up on the Web
(10/03/97)
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Specifically, how do you see Microsoft impacting the television business?
Love: The real threat is down the road. With their monopoly over the operating system, the question is: To what degree are they going to make the Microsoft browser the front end to television sets, which is exactly what they want to do? When you have (TCI Chairman) John Malone saying, "Microsoft is not going to dominate the cable industry the way they dominate the software industry," it's time to start worrying.
Why?
Love: Because Malone is saying that he knows that Microsoft is interested in this integration of multimedia through the front end of a television, and he's afraid of Microsoft. Just yesterday, Microsoft announced that Windows 98 and the new version of the Internet Explorer (4.0) will permit you to receive TV signals and download data directly into your computer. So down the road, when we turn on our combination TV-computer, Gates would like control the operating system that will help us navigate from video to audio to data to online commercial transactions. He wants everybody who wants to play in that Web environment to be his partner. And if you're a competitor, the odds are your products will be hidden deep in the menus. They'll crash more. That's the game that's already been played on the desktop. The question is whether or not Gates can take it into multimedia.
Nader: In other areas, they will destroy entire industries. For instance, the encyclopedia that Microsoft is in right now. They're not printing encyclopedias. They've got an online version that is squeezing the existing print versions. So in terms of access and the use of encyclopedias, Microsoft is already the big kid on the block in an industry that's been operating for 150 years. In the billing and presentment area of the banking industry, Microsoft is going to the banks and saying they'll give them the software for free. Once they get a lock on that, they'll be the toll collector for that whole area of online business. Just think of the leverage. Pretty soon, they'll move into financial services. They're not going to build new banks. They're just going to channel existing industries onto the information superhighway. This is Microsoft's global business strategy.
But isn't it true that as a Microsoft spokesperson said about the software business, that the whole field of high-tech is a "dynamic, innovative market." Wouldn't we be going in these directions, with or without Bill Gates?
Nader: When the auto started to replace the horse-and-buggy, there were a lot of auto companies. They had different engine systems and all kinds of different innovations. There was the Stanley Steamer, an electric car, and the internal combustion engine. What you're seeing here is not just a horse-and-buggy industry that's being challenged; you're seeing dozens and dozens of industries that are being challenged by an emerging monopolistic competitor. It's almost as if the entire horse-and-buggy industry were challenged by a giant General Motors from the get-go. And that is where the innovation will suffer, that's where pricing will become more and more burdensome once the Microsoft monopoly kicks in. Don't forget that a lot of monopolies get started with predatory pricing. One form of predatory pricing is to give away your product, which is possible in Microsoft's case because of the enormous profits it gained from the monopoly over operating systems. That should be considered unfair competition.
Love: Everybody expects technology to create upheavals in industry and new players. What's unique about Microsoft is that it's trying to become the central player in unprecedented areas of business. Its ability to leverage its power, to provide the crucial software for program interfaces, standards for performing secure credit card transactions, video-streaming and so forth puts them in a position where they become a partner in all these businesses. At any given moment, they can go from being your partner to being your direct competitor.
What do you hope to achieve with the conference?
Nader: We want the conference to put all this on the table, in public. We would like a response and a dialogue with Microsoft and Bill Gates. In his book, "The Road Ahead," Gates made repeated points about the need for dialogue on the emerging information superhighway in a period of technological change. This conference is right square on that principle.
You have said that some of the invitees felt intimidated from attending.
Nader: Of course. Why do you think the conference is being held in the first place? There's a fear and intimidation that is spreading rapidly throughout the software industry and is beginning the spread in the other industries that Microsoft is starting to penetrate. This reluctance to speak out in a supposedly free economy and free society is very unhealthy and very troubling. The fact that Novell, which is very critical of Microsoft, doesn't feel that it's able to make a presentation at the conference, illustrates just how much the doors on free and critical speech in the business community are closing. There's great fear. Some have even joked about needing a witness protection program.
Have you been pressing the Justice Department on the issue?
Nader: They don't respond. They just listen when we talk with them. They have three problems. One is they're not adequately staffed with skilled people to deal with a company like Microsoft and the high-velocity change in the industry. Second, Microsoft is very politically wired through the vice president, the president and other members of the administration. That sends its own signal to the antitrust division of the Justice Department. And third, there is a great reluctance among the people who know about Microsoft's monopolistic practices to become willing and open witnesses. The ability of Microsoft to retaliate is a many unsplendored thing. They can do it by restricting access to the code committees, getting other companies to veer away from what they consider a Microsoft-unfriendly corporate critic, they can raid them, move into their industry with predatory pricing practices.
SALON | Oct. 10, 1997
Jonathan Broder is Salon's regular Washington correspondent.