RSSSupreme Court Rejects Microsoft-Best Buy Appeal
By Ed Oswald | Published October 15, 2007, 12:26 PM
The Supreme Court has rejected an appeal by Microsoft and Best Buy, which clears the way for a class-action fraud lawsuit against the two companies to go forward.
The suit stems from accusations from customers that a subsidiary of Best Buy had signed up customers for a trial of MSN Internet Service without their consent. The two companies had previously signed a $200 million marketing agreement surrounding MSN.
Plaintiffs are using racketeering laws to go after Microsoft and Best Buy, and are attempting to argue that the deal between the two companies constituted an enterprise. The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act has been used to sue companies before, but this would be the first time the Supreme Court has ruled on a case using that argument.
Best Buy and Microsoft argued that if the Supreme Court allowed the lower court ruling to stand, it could open the doors for all types of lawsuits under RICO, and urged the justices to review it.
It also said there were disagreements among the various courts on RICO's reach, thus a high court ruling would help to sort that out. However, the Supreme Court refused to overturn the lower court ruling, sending it back to the appeals court for further litigation.
Chief Justice John Roberts recused himself from the case, however gave no reason. In the past, however, he has reported stock holdings in either company.
Neither MIcrosoft nor Best Buy had any immediate comment on the court's ruling as of press time.
This should be an interesting case to follow. As I remember, Best Buy associates got spiffs (money) for signing up people to the MSN service. At the time, this was one of the few ways associates got extra money above their regular hourly rate in the computer area of the sales floor.
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|"In the past, however, he has reported stock holdings in either company."
Huh? Can someone rephrase that so it makes sense? Is there a missing "n" in front of the word "either"? Otherwise I can't figure out what this sentence is saying.
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|"Chief Justice John Roberts recused himself from the case, however gave no reason. In the past, however, he has reported stock holdings in either company."
Recuse = Remove from the proceedings / will not give his opinion??
Looks like he "owns" stock from "each" company.
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|he has reported stock holdings in either company."
should read:
he has reported stock holdings in both companies."
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|Iiiiit's baaaaack.
/poltergeist
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|Ouch, the stupid, it burns!
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|Little FYI here, regarding the last bit on that page:
It ain't working. You can post the link all you want. It was amusing at first, and I do enjoy the occasional update, but it certainly isn't having the effect you imply you are going for in that last line or two.
Unless you're ****ing generally results in yawns... I guess we'll have to ask your Mom, eh?
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|Man NO ONE wants you here. So far you have had 5 accounts banned. How many more does it need to be? Hopefully the admins have a nice IP range and can just ban the whole dam domain as far as I am concerned. We just do not want your kind here.
If you have nothing constructive to say besides you bashing of someone that actually has constructive opinions and comments, Then bugger your a** off and and shut your trap.
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|god PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE shoot the owner of that blog.......
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|...
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|LOL, dude, what did you do to piss this guy off?? I can't believe you got another hater on you!
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|I defend Microsoft when he goes on his misinformed, FUD spreading rampages. That's pretty much all it takes with him.
Now he's one of my favorite puppy dogs. Now I just have to train him to fetch and stop crapping all over the place...
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|That'd be the poster of the link.
As you can see, he's multi-talented. He can troll *and* create web pages MySpace users would be ashamed of.
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|You cannot access the following Web address:
http://www.thegsblog.com/pctool/
It fits into the following filtering category(ies): Pornography
FAIL
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|lmao...
That's just too funny. There's only two images on that page: Ralph (Simpsons) and Zaine's Dad (or Mom, depending on how far away from the screen you are).
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