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[News] Washington Post Talks About Comp.os.linux.advocacy Windows Trolls

'Puppets' Emerge as Internet's Effective, and Deceptive, Salesmen

,----[ Quote ]
| Each is an example of "astroturfing," or the attempt to create the
| appearance of a grass-roots buzz for a product or service. "Trolls" are
| users who enter online discussion forums solely to bash users or products.
| 
| When most people hear "sock puppet," they think "Lamb Chop," the stocking
| sidekick of the late ventriloquist Shari Lewis. For guerrilla Internet
| marketers, however, a sock puppet is a false online persona, a virtual sock
| meant to conceal one's identity. It usually takes the form of a second
| account set up by an existing user under another name.
`----

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/06/AR2006100601742.html?nav=rss_technology


Yesterday:

A Wake-Up Call to Microsoft's PR Team

,----[ Quote ]
| In 1998, the Los Angeles Times reported that Microsoft, during its
| antitrust trials, hired PR companies to flood newspapers with fake
| letters of support, bearing ordinary individuals' names but actually
| written by Microsoft PR staff.
|
| Later, during the antitrust trials, Microsoft attempted to prove
| the inseparability of Windows and Internet Explorer by playing a
| video for the judge. But the government?s lawyer noticed that as
| the tape rolled on, the number of icons on the desktop kept
| changing. Microsoft had spliced together footage from different
| computers to make its point.
|
| Then in 2002, Microsoft's Web site featured a testimonial called
| "Confessions of a Mac to PC Convert," a first-person account by
| an attractive brunette "freelance writer" about how she had fallen
| in love with Windows XP.
|
| Unfortunately, a Slashdot member discovered that the identical
| photo was available for rent from the stock-photo libraries of
| GettyImages.com. Sure enough: Microsoft had hired a PR firm to
| write the testimonial. The "switcher" did not actually exist.
`----

http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/01/25/a-wake-up-call-to-microsofts-pr-team/



,----[ Quote ]
| Long before it employed bloggers to do the job for it, Microsoft hired
| sympathetic members of the public to make its case in online forums,
| posing as disinterested citizens. Things got much more professional as
| the antitrust trial unfurled. After hiring DCI in the late 1990s,
| Microsoft created two new trade groups, the Association for Competitive
| Technology (ACT), and the Americans for Technology Leadership (ALT),
| and marshaled campaigns such as "Freedom to Innovate" - encouraging
| Windows users the chance to make spontaneous gestures of support for
| Chairman Bill.
| 
| These weren't always too successful. A campaign in 2001 to petition 17
| state's Attorney Generals - who had pooled resources to bring their
| own antitrust action against Microsoft - resulted in supportive letters
| being written by dead people.
| 
| And the astroturf taint continues today.
| 
| Most recently, a spoof video portraying Al Gore as a Penguin was reported
| to have originated from a computer registered to the DCI Group, although
| the lobby group said it did not fund or approve the video.
`----

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/09/14/google_lobby/


,----[ Quote ]
|     "Some years back, Microsoft practiced a lot of dirty tricks using
| online mavens to go into forums and create Web sites extolling the virtues
| of Windows over OS/2. They were dubbed the Microsoft Munchkins, and it
| was obvious who they were and what they were up to. But their numbers
| and energy (and they way they joined forces with nonaligned dummies who
| liked to pile on) proved too much for IBM marketers, and Windows won
| the operating-system war through fifth-column tactics"
`----

http://worldcadaccess.typepad.com/gizmos/2005/11/2_grassroots_an.html


-- 
List of candidate Microsoft astroturfers (directly or indirectly paid by
Microsoft to post in this newsgroup):

        Larry Qualig (former Microsoft employee)
        Scott Nudds (AKA Vistaking)
        Erik Funkenbusch (formerly an anti-OS/2 astroturfer)
        flatfish+++
        Damian O'Leary (AKA Hadron Quark)
        Nedd Ludd
        Tim Smith
        OK
        DFS
        Lintard
        Terry
        Ana Thema

Take everything posted by the individuals above with grain of salt. Microsoft
has already been caught paying forum members to spread lies about rivals,
e.g. http://worldcadaccess.typepad.com/gizmos/2005/11/2_grassroots_an.html

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