In its Answer to Ticketmaster's First Amended Complaint Microsoft asserted the following:

45. Microsoft does not use Ticketmaster's Web Site. Microsoft does not access, incorporate or redistribute Ticketmaster Web Page documents. All Microsoft does is provide viewers of its own Web Pages with the URLs for other Web Page on the Internet, including some operated by Ticketmaster, that the viewer may find of interest. Whether or not the viewer accesses a Ticketmaster Web Page document is up to the viewer. Whether or not Ticketmaster displays the Web Page document to the viewer is up to Ticketmaster. Microsoft is not a party to the communication between the viewer and Ticketmaster.

46. Ticketmaster's first amended complaint is based upon a fundamental fiction. Ticketmaster creates an illusion that Microsoft, not the Internet user, is accessing Ticketmaster's Web Pages. Ticketmaster knows that this illusion is completely false. Moreover, at any time it chose, Ticketmaster had the power to refuse access to any of its Web Pages. Ticketmaster voluntarily and knowingly chose not to refuse access. Ticketmaster has publicly acknowledged that it possesses the capability to refuse access and that it voluntarily elected not to do so.

47. Any actual linkage complained of by Ticketmaster in its Complaint and First Amended Complaint occurred because Ticketmaster intended it to occur.

[On estoppel:] Ticketmaster represents to the Internet community, including Microsoft, that it wants to be contacted over the Internet and that its Web Pages are available for viewing. Ticketmaster actively encourages Internet users to seek out its Web Site and to refer others to its Web Site. As a result, Ticketmaster is estopped from making any claim based on the conduct it has solicited.

[On assumption of the risk:] When it elected to participate in the World Wide Web system, Ticketmaster assumed the risk that other participants in the Internet would use Ticketmaster's URLs and access its Web Pages.