First off, corporate personhood is based off of the idea that just as the law applies to a citizen of the U.S, a corporate company in the U.S should also have those same laws applied to them as well. It encompasses an entire debate on what rights and laws apply to companies since there are clear differences between a person and a corporate company in an ethical, social, and legal context.
In terms of the Microsoft antitrust case, I think that what Microsoft did was definitely unethical. However, it is interesting that the initial punishment was not carried out in the end. Instead of splitting the company into two, it was taken to the circuit court and Microsoft was then given a less intense punishment, which was to make their competitor’s software and products more integral into their Window’s operating system instead of purposely forcing other companies to use their products through shady deals and integrated products into the OS. In the end, it’s weird to see that instead of there being smaller companies, it encouraged other companies to almost be of the same size if not bigger, such as Google, Facebook, and Amazon. Even though the impact of forcing everyone to use the same OS has definitely diminished, since most software products are OS agnostic and there’s more optional OS’s that are usable in the market today, it still hasn’t tackled the possible problem of giving companies humungous influence to the point where they can usually get away with what most people can’t. This point though has been challenged with social media companies coming to court recently to appease senators’ questions and have a conversation about the data they have. However, it’s interesting to note that even though a company like Facebook can have a data breach where its impact is so huge that it’s taken to Court, social media becomes integral to everyday life and usage on other sites that most people wouldn’t really bother to get rid of it.
It’s weird to say that corporates should have the same rights as people. It’s almost counterintuitive since a corporate is made up of so many different people in the meantime that have different thoughts and morals themselves. However, if a corporate is handed the same rights and responsibilities as people, then the consequences should be the same. It is almost like how most people though on the top of the socioeconomic ladder seem to get away with a lot of crime, just like how companies with huge influence get away with a lot of things that may or may not cross the line. Overall, it’s not like high standing people don’t get away with this too.