1) Why did the court consider motivations to be important in the US v Microsoft antitrust case? The body of law and precedent requires that it does, in this case. Though I am not a lawyer, a quick google search found a key phrase in Judge Jackson's Conclusions of Law document: "once it is proved that the defendant possesses monopoly power in a relevant market, liability for monopolization depends on a showing that the defendant used anticompetitive methods to achieve or maintain its position."
That last phrase "to achieve or maintain its position" may involve the consideration of motivations. Otherwise, a defendant might say "we weren't dumping our product; we were merely giving our customers more for less!" The discovery of telling quotations such as the two above would give lie to such a defense, and this is why the "cut off their air supply" quotation was considered so carefully during the proceeding. That document is very interesting to read. It discusses motivations in several places.
2) Why does it matter today, now that browsers are (for the most part, Opera and others excluded) free?
Well, I guess it's really the Consent Decree and the Rule of Law that makes it matter today. If the terms of your divorce say that you're not allowed to see your ex-wife's children, it doesn't matter if 8 years have passed and you have since stopped drinking. You must abide by the terms of the decree to avoid contempt of court.
I said "8 years" in the above example, because that decree became effective in 2001. It's interesting to note that there was a prior decree in 1995, and Microsoft did actually have to go through a contempt of court proceeding for not being in compliance with its terms:
For exactly the same reason as "dumping": It results in lower consumer prices in the short term, with less competition (and higher prices) in the long term.
Where do we see these higher prices in the long term? Not in the browser market. Where else? I'm sure there are some examples but they must be few and far between. Not even Standard Oil got pricing power.
