The Justice Department, the States, and their team of grinning lawyers deserve the public's congratulations for protecting them from the menace that is Microsoft. It's time for a parade down the Canyon of Heroes for David Boies and his crew. After all, Microsoft's monopoly of Internet technology and its crushing browser success has stifled innovation and caused high prices for software and bandwidth, right?

Let's review: We have free browsers, and oodles of free plug-ins. We have free desktop helper applets and free Net-based software from the scores of new Application Service Providers that have sprung up in the last few years. We have dozens of new free ISPs, giving us bandwidth in exchange for marketing info. We have a huge free operating system that has made major inroads in corporate America. We have jillions of free Web sites giving us gazillions of gigabytes worth of free content. We have reams of free and open code, delivered to our desks, free of charge.

Yeah, Microsoft stifled competition alright, and clearly damaged consumers in the process. That's the essence of antitrust, isn't it? Rigging the system and using immense power to injure consumers? Well, isn't that what happened this week when Justice's friendly judge handed down a long-expected ruling against Microsoft? Seems to me that billions disappeared from pension funds, retirement accounts, and individual brokerage accounts.

Look, Microsoft is an arrogant bully that had its way in the stunted and short-lived PC era by controlling an operating system and capitalizing on stupid management mistakes by IBM, Apple, and everyone else. It tried to use the same crude tactics at the dawn of the Internet age. And yes, it pressed its advantage unfairly in order to beat Netscape. (It beat Netscape so badly that the poor little company-that-could was forced to a horrible and untimely fate: a $6 billion buyout that made everyone involved richer than they already were).

The Microsoft suit is significant for one, and only one reason (no, Scott McNealy's hypocrisy doesn't count) -- it has permanently created a Federal presence in the development of networked software in the United States. And that means, of course, lots of lawyers getting lots of hourly fees to litigate in an area they clearly don't understand.

Look, I'm no cyberlibertarian. I believe that as elected representatives of the people, government should play a strong role in developing digital policy to protect all, not just the vested few. I reject, and have loudly criticized, the lame attempts to self-regulate this industry. But following the case as I have for the past two years, it's very clear that none of the lawyers involved -- prosecution, defense, judge -- understands what's happening on the Internet. They simply don't get that the structure of the Net itself is a robust antitrust guardian.

Even looking at the biggest players on the Net today -- AOL/Time Warner and Yahoo -- can anyone sanely suggest that they will enjoy monopoly positions in coming years? Of course not, because constant innovation and constant publishing and republishing, the Net's built-in churn, refreshes the competitive landscape on a constant basis. Yes, Yahoo or AOL can buy every decent start-up in sight, but controlling the Internet will be as easy for them as squeezing a fistful of sand without spilling any.

In the context of the worldwide network -- not the desktop -- Microsoft could never hope to dominate. Frankly, its lamest action in the whole sordid browser mess was its assumption that the company that controlled the browser would control access the Net. What hooey!

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A Web site, a browser, a server, a router do not equate to DOS or Windows in the small, stifling world of the personal computer desktop. If you open your eyes in Silicon Alley, the simple pace of innovation and the flow of capital will surely guide you to the realization that no one owns the "operating system" of the Internet and no one will.

It's no wonder that the supreme irony of the antitrust ruling against Microsoft is that the company itself has been surpassed this week as the king of market capitalization by a true Internet company, Cisco -- a company that values the open nature of the Net and knows how to work within its culture. Microsoft is reduced to being just another big company trying to make its way online.

No, even the great Mac lover and MS hater would have to agree that both the crime and the punishment are vestiges of the past. Smashing Microsoft has all the ramifications for the Internet age as going after Ford for its Model T dominance.

* Tom Watson (twatson@internet.com) is co-founder and co-managing editor of atNewYork.com.