Verily I say unto thee, that Roy Schestowitz spake thusly:
> Someone has just told me about the following page:
>
> Microsoft Shilling and Astroturfing
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
> | MSFT Shilling and Astroturfing
> |
> | * Paid for ads purportedly from a think-tank, although at least
> | one signer of the ad defended it. You might want to take a
> | closer look at what the web has to offer on this issue.
> | * Paid for Gartner "research" and DH Brown "research". Also
> | paid for IDC "research".
> | * Planned to plant fake op-ed pieces in local newspapers.
> | See also this C|Net article.
> | * Fake "grass root" letter writing campaign. See also
> | this article. This time, the astroturf is directed to Attorneys
> | General of the US states suing Microsoft for anti-trust violations.
> | * Planted shills in a Compuserve forum
> | * Planted shills in ZDNet TalkBack forum and MSNBC forum shills
> | * Planted shills in an AOL forum
> | * Stuffed an on-line ballot box
> | * Stuffed another on-line ballot box
> | * Fund a think-tank to produce a favorable whitepaper.
> | * Astroturfed a Register reporter
> | * Secretly funded a Grass roots Network of "Citizens".
> | * Analysis of Microsoft lobbying and astroturfing
> | * Posted fake user testimonials. See also this commentary.
> `----
>
> http://www.inlumineconsulting.com:8080/website/msft.shilling.html
>
> It's quite clearn indeed that they have had some 'placements' in The Register
> and C|Net. They do this all the time. Our neighbour troll Bill Weisgerber
> has been caught serving as a forum shill in some online forums. Maybe he
> gets paid to post in COLA as well.
Ooh, that's one for the bookmarks. This one in particular caught my eye:
.----
| ZDNet UK logs reveal rather obvious vote rigging, and prove that it
| originated from within Microsoft:
|
| * A very high percentage of voters are from within the
| microsoft.com domain.
|
| * There is a very high incidence of people attempting to cast
| multiple votes, even though the poll script blocked out most attempts
| at multiple voting. The one that wins the prize made 228 attempts to
| vote. This person was from within the microsoft.com domain.
|
| * Several of the voters evidently followed a link contained in an
| email, the subject line of which ran: "PLEASE STOP AND VOTE FOR
| .NET!" We know this, because our logs include the Web address where
| visitors browsed from; when people click there from a Microsoft
| Exchange email message, Exchange helpfully gives us the subject line
| and username. The people who followed that link all had email
| addresses in the microsoft.com domain.
|
| * There is also clear evidence of automated voting, with scripts
| attempting to post multiple times.
|
| This is not the first time Microsoft has been caught using dubious
| practices. Last August, lobbyists acting for Microsoft went beyond
| the grave and dispatched letters to US states' attorneys general from
| two deceased people as part of a campaign to persuade government
| prosecutors to lay off the company in the antitrust case. US lobby
| group the Campaign Against Government Waste (CAGW) posted the letters
| as part of an attempt to convince attorneys general there was a
| grass-roots campaign against the case.
`----
- http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,2102244,00.htm
Did Microsoft ever make an official comment about this vote rigging?
They *were* caught red-handed, after all. Or was it just swept under the
carpet, like all their other dirty little secrets.
Makes you wonder about all those who demoted the Linux vote on Dell's
IdeaStorm.
I mean what possible motive could anyone have for denying others the
opportunity to buy something they want, unless those complaining were
trying to protect the company they work for (Microsoft) from losing
market share?
Frankly I still can't understand why Dell even *implemented* the
"demote" button on that site? Is it *ever* anyone's place to dictate to
someone else what they are (or are not) allowed to *want*?
--
K.
http://slated.org
.----
| I found [Vista] to be a dangerously unstable operating system,
| which has caused me to lose data ... unfortunately this product
| is unfit for any user. - [H]ardOCP, <http://tinyurl.com/3bpfs2>
`----
Fedora Core release 5 (Bordeaux) on sky, running kernel 2.6.20-1.2312.fc5
20:42:38 up 24 days, 18:14, 0 users, load average: 0.44, 0.32, 0.25
|
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