An independent research group that takes money from the people it's
supposed to be researching is either accepting bribes or stupid, neither
of which says anything good about their conclusions.
On Wed, 28 Jun 2000, Matthew Gaylor wrote:
> http://www.independent.org/tii/news/000628statement.html
>
>
> FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
> June 28, 2000
> Contact: Rob Latham
> (510) 632-1366
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>
> STATEMENT FROM THE INDEPENDENT INSTITUTE ON ORACLE'S SPONSORSHIP OF
> SMEAR CAMPAIGN
>
>
> OAKLAND, California -- The Independent Institute released the
> following statement from its founder and president, David J. Theroux,
> regarding stories in
> the June 28, 2000 editions of The New York Times and The Wall Street
> Journal that software maker Oracle Corporation hired investigators to
> use
> clandestine tactics to try and smear the Institute's work.
>
> "We were disappointed to learn that our San Francisco Bay Area
> neighbor, Oracle Corporation, hired Investigative Group International
> in an unsuccessful
> attempt to smear us by calling into question the legitimacy of our
> 14-year scholarly, public policy research program.
>
> "Instead of being willing to address the issues openly, Oracle has
> apparently felt the need to employ back-alley tactics, subterfuge,
> and disinformation in
> order to achieve its aims.
>
> "We challenge Oracle's executives -- and renew our invitation to
> Assistant Attorney General Joel Klein -- to publicly debate the
> central economic, legal, and
> social issues of antitrust, competition, and high technology.
>
> "Evidently, Oracle's clandestine campaign was triggered by the impact
> of the Institute's research findings and public discussions resulting
> from our Open
> Letter on Antitrust Protectionism -- which criticizes the antitrust
> prosecution of Microsoft and other high-tech firms as having nothing
> to do with consumer
> welfare and everything to do with corporate welfare.
>
> "To set the record straight, the Open Letter was organized, written,
> and promoted entirely at our initiative. Two hundred and forty of the
> nation's leading
> economists and other scholars signed the Open Letter, none of whom
> was paid for his or her involvement. The Institute used its general
> funds to publish the
> Open Letter on June 2, 1999 in two national newspapers as a public service.
>
> "The Open Letter was organized as part of the Institute's
> long-running work in this field. Our research and work in this area
> predates the Microsoft case, the
> "browser wars," and even the Internet industry itself. Research by
> professors Stan Liebowitz and Stephen Margolis, culminating in our
> widely-acclaimed
> book, Winners, Losers & Microsoft, draws upon the authors' systematic
> research of independent software reviews from computer magazines over
> the past
> 15 years.
>
> "The fact that Microsoft has been a member of The Independent
> Institute for the past two years has not altered any aspect of the
> substance or conclusions of
> our consistent and indeed independent work, stretching back over ten
> years. Microsoft's support constitutes a gift, which any first-year
> lawyer can tell you is
> insufficient to support a legally-enforceable contract. Unlike Oracle
> and Investigative Group International, The Independent Institute has
> never performed
> contract research and never will.
>
> "All of our work is strictly based on the excellent, scholarly
> standards of peer-reviewed science, for which we will not accept
> contract funding, and there is
> no aspect of government policy nor social or economic issue that we
> might not address.
>
> "Here we have a federal court case that will affect the future of
> global markets in a field that is producing the single greatest
> economic revolution since the
> dawn of the industrial age. Pursued at the behest of a group of
> multi-billionaire business leaders, this case is based on a
> fundamentally flawed economic
> theory ("path dependence") that has no empirical evidence to support
> it and no evidence of consumer harm.
>
> "Meanwhile, opinion polls show that the general public is
> overwhelmingly opposed to the case and ranks Microsoft at the highest
> order. We shouldn't let the
> sideshow of public relations campaigns and corporate espionage mask
> the real story in this case -- the pervasive existence of corporate
> welfare and corporate
> statism in the U.S., of which antitrust protectionism is one major aspect.
>
> "Since its publication, Winners, Losers & Microsoft, has received
> glowing reviews from top economists and other scholars in the field.
> It would appear
> that perhaps the inconvenient, timely, and well-received findings of
> our work might not have exactly set too well with some of those at
> Oracle, and perhaps
> elsewhere, who have a special-interest stake in the outcome of the
> Microsoft case.
>
> An Open Letter to President Clinton on Antitrust Protectionism
>
> Winners, Losers & Microsoft: Competition and Antitrust in High
> Technology, by Stan Liebowitz and Stephen Margolis
>
> Antitrust and Monopoly: Anatomy of a Policy Failure, by Dominick T. Armentano
>
> Is Microsoft a Monopolist? by Richard McKenzie and William Shughart
> [Article from The Independent Review (pdf or html)]
>
> Antitrust and the Commons: Cooperation or Collusion? by Bruce Yandle
> [Article from The Independent Review (pdf)]
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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