Redmond faces the music: Lawsuit reinstated

Microsoft Corp. must face racketeering claims in a lawsuit filed by Best Buy Co. customers who say they were improperly charged for MSN Internet service, a federal appeals court ruled.

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco reinstated a lawsuit yesterday claiming Microsoft and Best Buy co-operated to activate MSN Internet service and charge for it without customers' knowledge.

The lawsuit, filed by Best Buy customers in California and Nevada, claims Microsoft invested $200 million (U.S.) in Best Buy, which agreed to promote Microsoft's Internet service. As part of the agreement, the suit says, Best Buy employees secretly activated free trial MSN accounts when customers paid for merchandise with their credit cards, causing customers to rack up charges when they failed to cancel the service after the trials expired.

"These allegations are more than adequate to establish, if true, that Microsoft and Best Buy had a common purpose of increasing the number of Microsoft's Internet service through fraudulent means," the court said in the ruling.

Jack Evans, a spokesperson for Microsoft, said, "This is a procedural development and there is no finding at all on the merits of the case."

In a similar case pending in Washington state court in Seattle, a judge narrowed the claims and required the plaintiffs to concede that Microsoft disclosed terms of the MSN free trial to customers, Evans said.

http://www.thestar.com/Business/article/210700