Microsoft: A Not So Wide Open Case

The Department of Justice has asked that evidence in its case against Microsoft be sealed. Such a move would allow the DOJ to confer with Microsoft and other companies close to the case to decide which of those documents should be off limits indefinitely. Among the 97 documents in question are e-mails, depositions, contracts with computer makers and internal memos, some of whose contents the DOJ has already leaked, as Microsoft tartly pointed out. But keeping some of the information under wraps could be to the company's advantage -- and a red flag to the news media, which will probably try to have it unsealed. The request, like the rest of the case against Microsoft, will be handled by none other than the company's December dance partner, Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson.