DOJ Investigators Dig Into Windows 7

Imagine someone coming into your room and watching you every day as you go about your business, looking through your stuff, waiting for you to make a mistake. This unpleasant sounding scenario is analogous to what Microsoft is facing as Windows 7 is being reviewed by the federal government.

With Windows 7 set to likely launch holiday 2009 (based on Bill Gates and CEO Steve Ballmer’s public remarks), Microsoft handed over the code and copies of Windows 7 in its current state to Department of Justice Technical Committee (TC) members to comb for possible antitrust violations.

The TC is the result of a long legal battle between Microsoft and smaller competitors in various fields, which all allege that Microsoft tries to write its Windows code in such a way to exclude them by defaulting to Microsoft applications. The U.S. government agreed that such anticompetitive antitrust violations were occurring and in November 2001, Microsoft finally agreed to settle with the U.S. government and face oversight.

Full story: dailytech.com