Massachusetts, the lone holdout in the Microsoft antitrust settlement, said on Friday that the software giant may be engaging in "troubling" new efforts to crush its rivals.
Massachusetts, the last state opposing the settlement with the federal government approved by US District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, said in a court filing that the settlement had failed to rein in Microsoft's anticompetitive conduct, and may not be able to do so.
"We have continued to receive and review indications that Microsoft is engaged in troubling business behavior," state Attorney General Thomas Reilly said in the filing.
"None of our completed investigations have shown such behavior to be effectively cabined by the court's existing prohibitions," he said.
Massachusetts, among several states involved in the initial suit against Microsoft, is pressing for a tougher settlement of the charges of monopoly abuse.
The court document said there had been "allegations that Microsoft is currently engaged in a campaign against various internet search engines similar to the campaign it previously waged against Netscape's Navigator browser."
It said Microsoft may be preparing to launch an offensive against document software such as Adobe Acrobat, a popular tool for Internet documents.
"If Microsoft is taking steps to hobble the competitive effectiveness of these rival products and thereby supplant them, such serial killing of competing technologies is a serious and troubling prospect," the document said.
"It also, however, seems unlikely that this conduct ... could be stopped by the limited scope of this court's standing decree.
The plan accepted by the federal judge endorsed most of a settlement already reached last year between Microsoft and the government, ending a four-year battle over the company's illegal squelching of competitors.
The settlement imposed no financial penalty, but it forced billionaire Bill Gates's software giant to disclose more technical information and barred anti-competitive agreements on Microsoft products.
The US Department of Justice said in a separate filing that it had some concerns about the levels of licensing by Microsoft but that the company appeared to be in compliance with the deal.
"Microsoft has made full compliance with its obligations under the final judgments a top priority of the company, and the company continues to devote substantial resources to its compliance work," the department's document said.
Earlier in the week, Microsoft agreed to make changes in its Windows XP operating system to satisfy government concerns that it steered users seeking online music to Microsoft's web browser.
The Justice Department said the "Shop for Music Online" feature in Windows XP invoked Microsoft's Internet Explorer even when the user has chosen a different default web browser, such as Netscape, Opera, or Mozilla, in violation of the settlement accepted by the judge in November 2002.
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