A dismayed Judge Harold Greene is seeing his anti-trust settlement with AT&T Co and the Baby Bells slowly slipping away from him, and he has reluctantly granted the seven regional telephone companies spun out from AT&T permission to participate in the electronic information business by providing services such as audiotext, viewdata, home shopping and stock […]
A dismayed Judge Harold Greene is seeing his anti-trust settlement with AT&T Co and the Baby Bells slowly slipping away from him, and he has reluctantly granted the seven regional telephone companies spun out from AT&T permission to participate in the electronic information business by providing services such as audiotext, viewdata, home shopping and stock market quotes. He was forced into his ruling by an appellate court ruling that reversed his 1987 decision on the issues, but made clear his dismay, saying he believed that letting the companies enter the information market would allow them quickly to dominate that market and to eliminate both competition and the independents which would make that competition possible. The Justice Department joined the Bells in asking Judge Greene to allow them to use their telephone lines to offer their own on-line services.
