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No matter how well-behaved they are, it's a rare person (or company) who enjoys being constantly monitored.  Here's the bad news for Microsoft, then: a judge has extended antitrust oversight of the corporation through late 2009.

But things weren't as embarrassing as they might have been.  In an executive summary, U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly wrote, "The Court's extension should not be viewed as a sanction against Microsoft, but rather as a means to allow the respective provisions of the Final Judgments the opportunity to operate together towards maximizing Section III.E's procompetitive potential."

Or, in vastly oversimplified other words, "So far, so good, but there's still a few things we'd like to see done."

For its part, Microsoft took the news rather well.  Although the company had wanted federal oversight to expire in November of 2007 (and then again at the end of this month), Brad Smith, Microsoft's general counsel, told Benjamin J. Romano, "We will continue to comply fully with the consent decree.  We are gratified that the court recognized our extensive efforts to work cooperatively with the large number of government agencies involved."

There you have it, then.  And as a final note: if Microsoft isn't, for some reason, able to satisfy the U.S. government by November of 2009, oversight can be extended yet again.