When Best Buy (NYSE:BBY) agreed to sign up customers (with or without their knowledge) for MSN Internet service when selling a computer, little did the retailer know that this would come back to haunt it. The racketeering case against the retailer and Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) has come up from the ashes recently again, and now an attorney from Best Buy actually admitted that he falsified documents in the case. Oh boy.

The case, which was brought in 2003, accused both the retailer and software manufacturer of signing up thousands of Best Buy PC customers for Microsoft's MSN Internet service -- without any consent from the customer that credit cards would be charged after the "trial" ended. Perhaps this was a way for Microsoft to inflate subscribers for its online unit at a time when Google, Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) was starting to become all-powerful in the Internet world (although through advertising, not service providing).

The Best Buy lawyer in question here has admitted to altering emails and a paper memo before turning them over to the suit's plaintiffs. Yikes. I'm not so sure I believe the attorney's claim that he "acted alone" without the consent of his law firm or client (Best Buy). What was his motive, then? This whole claim is questionable to me. What this attorney has done has now put the credibility of Best Buy into question; this is not a good thing. Although 2003 is ancient history, this case is far from over, and now it's become even more complicated.

Microsoft Corp.'s (NASDAQ:MSFT) MSN and its other online businesses used to be a pretty big deal. They sat at the top of the pack with AOL and Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO). That was before social networking and video sharing and ... Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG).

Microsoft has brought in new blood to try to resurrect its fallen online operations. But it may take more than a transfusion to get the operations back on their feet.

There is some concern at Microsoft that it became overly focused on online software, like mapping, functionality, while allowing marketing to go to hell.

Microsoft really has three online initiatives but they may not be able to all exist together. There is the old portal business that competes with the likes of AOL and Yahoo!. There is a home grown search engine that competes -- though not very well -- with Google. And there is the Microsoft Live business that helps tether users of Windows and Office to the Internet and get additional interoperability and functions for software that is installed on PCs.

It could be argued that the search feature is the core of the online connection of Office productivity software and Windows operating system users. It is part of the overall efficiency of the Internet. So, search and Live can probably live together and be part of the same overall operation.

This leaves MSN, which has little to offer beyond what users get from AOL and Yahoo!. Since most of the services from these "portals" are free, MSN has to count on advertising revenue to fuel its income. And, as Yahoo! investors have found out recently, that is easier said than done.

Microsoft has two promising online businesses and a portal operation that is running far out of first place in that segment of the market.

Maybe AOL or Yahoo! would buy MSN. It is hard to see what Microsoft should do with it.

Douglas A. McIntyre is a partner at 24/7 Wall St.