Microsoft's Activision acquisition was entirely cloud-driven. Office 365 isn't just a version of Office that you never stop paying for – it's a version of Office that never stops spying on you, and selling the data to your competitors: Microsoft's cloud products spy in ways that are extreme even by the industry's very low standards.

Locking customers into Microsoft's cloud also means locking customers into Microsoft surveillance.

This is especially true of cloud computing, where Microsoft is using exclusivity deals and illegal 'tying' (forcing customers to use a product they don't want in order to use a product they desire) to lock customers into its cloud offering: But in the years since, Microsoft has demonstrated that it regrets nothing about its illegal conduct and has no hesitations about repeating that conduct. The company did not use the same dirty tricks to destroy, say, Google as it had used against Netscape. The antitrust rough ride tamed Microsoft…for a while. After being convicted of antitrust violations, the company dragged out the legal process until George W Bush stole the presidency and decided not to pursue them any further, letting them wriggle off the hook. Microsoft is another one of those poster-children, of course. Activision-Blizzard is a giant, moribund company whose 'innovation' consists of endless sequels to its endless sequels, whose market power allows it to crush its workers while starving competitors of market oxygen, ensuring that gamers and game workers have nowhere else to go. That was Microsoft's bet, anyway, as it plonked down $69b to acquire Activision-Blizzard – a company that shouldn't exist, having been formed out of a string of grossly anticompetitive mergers that were waved through.Īctivision-Blizzard is a poster-child for the failures of antitrust law over the past 40 years, a period in which monopolies were tolerated and even encouraged by the agencies that were supposed to prevent monopolies from forming and break up the ones that slipped past their defenses. In blocking Microsoft's acquisition of Activision-Blizzard, the UK Competition and Markets Authority has made history: they have stepped in to prevent a notorious, convicted monopolist from seizing control over a nascent, important market (cloud gaming), ignoring the transparent, self-serving lies Microsoft told about the merger:Ĭloud gaming isn't really a thing right now, but it might be.

Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current writing projects, current readingĬonvicted monopolist prevented from re-offending ( ).

Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.

Convicted monopolist prevented from re-offending: Microsoft won't be allowed to buy Activision.

Homeland cory doctorow