The Federal Trade Commission was earlier said to violate the United States’ Constitution by Microsoft after the FTC filed an antitrust lawsuit against the tech giant over its plans to buy Activision Blizzard King.

Two weeks ago, Microsoft responded to the FTC’s action, saying, “The Commission’s procedures violate Microsoft’s right to procedural due process under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. The structure of these administrative proceedings, in which the Commission initiates and finally adjudicates the Complaint against Microsoft, violates Microsoft’s Fifth Amendment Due Process right to adjudication before a neutral judge. These administrative proceedings violate Microsoft’s Fifth Amendment Due Process right to adjudication before a neutral judge as applied to Microsoft because the Commission has prejudged the merits of the instant action.”

Since then, we’ve wrapped up Christmas and New Year’s Eve and fallen over to 2023. Microsoft has also woken up from its holiday slumber, as it has modified its official response to the FTC. They have removed the idea of unconstitutionality, and company spokesman David Cuddy explained to Axios why they decided to modify their response:

” The FTC has an important mission to protect competition and consumers, and we quickly updated our response to omit language suggesting otherwise based on the constitution. We initially put all potential arguments on the table internally and should have dropped these defenses before we filed. We appreciated feedback about these defenses and are engaging directly with those who expressed concerns to clarify our position,” Cuddy wrote.

It all sounds like a bunch of nonsense. Microsoft is now trying to show up less of a bully because it seems that being tough (and, in the meantime, constantly talking down to Sony…) will not achieve anything. We recently wrote that it is likely that MS could close the $68.7 billion deal for Activision Blizzard King, but it will have to make further concessions to do so.

Not a bit suspicious.

Source: WCCFTech