Antitrust Conference Revs Uphttp://web.archive.org/web/20001210025400/www.wired.com/news/...1 of 21/13/07 7:41 PM

Antitrust Conference Revs Up

byArik HesseldahlandJackie Bennion

8:55 a.m. Aug. 28, 1998 PDT

While Bill Gates faces his second day of testimony in the government's antitrust case against Microsoft, aselect group will converge on the other side of Lake Washington Friday for a half-day conference on antitrustissues in cyberspace. The forum, which couldn't be more timely, brings together personalities ready todefend both sides of the issue.Code Warriors vs. Trustbusters is being co-sponsored by theWashington Institute Foundation(WIF), aSeattle-based think tank focused on antitrust issues at the state level, and theCompetitive EnterpriseInstitute, which the

Boston Globe

once called "the country's feistiest think tank." CEI has championedMicrosoft's cause in its ongoing battle with the government.Representative Rick White (R-Washington) will deliver the day's political address while the rest of the event isgiven over to debating two central topics: "Can Microsoft Bundle the Future and Should the GovernmentAct?" and "Antitrust Action Against Microsoft: Pro-Consumer or Pro-Competitor?""The event will focus on whether antitrust laws can be applied to the current marketplace where intellectualproperty, not machines, are the new capital assets," said WIF spokeswoman Mariana Parks.Parks said that Microsoft has donated money to the organization, but for a project related to regional transitissues, and not for this conference.Panelists come from opposite ends of the regulatory spectrum. Defending one corner will be James Love,executive director of Ralph Nader'sConsumer Project on Technology, an organization that has been highlycritical of Microsoft and its business practices.Love will argue that the "problem with current antitrust enforcement isn't that the Justice Department isasking too much but rather that it has yet to seek broader remedies for Microsoft's anticompetitiveconduct."Love will be opposed by Jonathan Zuck, the director of the Association for Competitive Technology, who, notsurprisingly, will argue that regulation is stifling innovation and restricting competition. "Do we want ideasthat move at the speed of light -- or the speed of government?"Parks said she expects a lively exchange."On one side of the debate, you have a group very much part of the '60s baby-boomer model wanting toprotect consumers through government regulation. On the other side is the next wave, the Generation-Xgroup, who believe that today's industry is as much about choice as protection and that deregulation maybe the best solution."Other panelists include White, who also founded the Congressional Internet Caucus, and Republican SladeGorton, Washington's senior senator, who as the state's former attorney general made his reputation onseveral landmark consumer-advocacy cases. The event includes a short guest list and is not open to thepublic."I suspect quite a few people from Microsoft will be there as well as attorneys and policy makers looking tosee how things will shape up in this area for the next century," said Parks. "It looks like a wonkish gatheringfrom the outside, but there are some very strategic people taking part."The conference was several months in the planning but jumped on the fast track when the JusticeDepartment's investigation of Microsoft began heating up.As attendees file into the Seattle conference center Friday, the Microsoft chairman will be deep in deposition,reportedly happening somewhere on the Microsoft campus in nearby Redmond.