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____/ Chris Ahlstrom on Wednesday 22 April 2009 11:35 : \____
> After takin' a swig o' grog, Roy Schestowitz belched out
> this bit o' wisdom:
>
>> Microsoft gains familiar ally in IE antitrust battle in Europe
>>
>> ,----[ Quote ]
>>| Microsoft Corp. gained a familiar ally in its latest antitrust battle with
>>| the European Commission today when the Association for Competitive
>>| Technology (ACT) was accepted as an interested third party in the case.
>> `----
>>
>>
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9131834
>>
>> ACT backs Microsoft in Brussels' IE legal spat
>> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/04/21/act_supports_ie_eu_case/
>>
>> Not a word about it being just a Microsoft shill, created by Microsoft in
>> antitrust days (1998). This group is responsible for "letters from dead
>> people", but it had a different umbrella name, ATL.
>
> Awwww, it's simply an extension of Microsoft asstroturfing.
Jonathan Zuck also tells how ACT came into existence:
How it got started: in 1998, governments across the world were busy
debating issues like the Y2K crisis, antitrust in the new economy, encryption
exports and broadband. But when debate turned to serious discussions about how
government needed to ‘fix’ the tech industry, even executives of smaller firms
started to take notice. While these executives were finally awake to the
direct and immediate threat of heavy-handed government regulation, none of
them had their own lobbyists or government affairs staff. Yet, with so much at
stake, they realized that small tech firms could no longer remain in the
silent majority of international business. Later that year, several executives
of small technology firms came together to create the Association for
Competitive Technology (ACT). Since its founding, ACT has been the leading
voice for the entrepreneurial tech firms that are so critical to our world’s
economy. Since its inception ACT has found that many of the issues that face
SMEs are global in scope. This has led SMEs from outside the United States, in
Europe and Asia joining as members.
“Antitrust in the new economy” simply refers to Microsoft’s investigation at
the Department of Justice. That’s where Judge Jackson called
Microsoft “criminals”. It seems safe to believe that ACT is a rename/respin of
the defunct ATL, which perhaps got a little ‘too’ exposed when Microsoft
needed shills to write supportive letters (’on behalf’ of dead people) in
1998. CAGW and ATL were among those in the headlines and so was DCI. ATL is
another Zuck-led lobbying arm and according to SourceWatch, ACT was actually
created by Microsoft, so it’s nothing to do with small businesses. To quote
SourceWatch:
Microsoft has also created new trade groups, the Association for
Competitive Technology (ACT) and Americans for Technology Leadership (ATL), to
generate support for the company through Web sites and a sophisticated and
largely hidden grassroots lobbying campaign.
ACT is still very busy creating new domains and making up all sorts of
campaigns whose domain name is registered by proxy. We covered this before and
offered evidence.
Returning to ACT’s own description of the raison d’être, “leading voice for the
entrepreneurial tech firms that are so critical to our world’s economy” simply
means that whenever regulators make proposals that challenge Microsoft’s
business (e.g. antitrust, open document formats, software patents), ACT
lobbyist/photographer Jonathan “guitar hero” Zuck and his team come to the
rescue and lend SME AstroTurf support.
You’ve got to love how they mix (saturate/dilute) lists to hide the real source
and concentration of power.
For example:
“eBay, Oracle, Verisign [...oh! And some 'small' company that created us, a
company called] Microsoft”
Regarding support from industry:
“Sax Software…”
That would be a company created by Zuck’s friend and one of the chief people
among ACT’s staff.
How many small companies are they listing? Like half a dozen at most? Where are
those 4,000 companies that Zuck spoke to me about? Are these too ashamed to be
affiliated or associated with ACT? Are they even aware that their voices are
being stolen by a Microsoft lobby that seeks to harm them ‘on their behalf’?
ACT also says : “in 1998, governments across the world were busy debating
issues like the Y2K crisis, antitrust in the new economy, encryption exports
and broadband.”
More dilution exists there. What’s that second thing again? Was it only
antitrust? Was there a specific case that year? Were other issues like
encryption exports and broadband relevant only in 1998?
ACT — who are these guys kidding? We’ll start keeping better track using the
always-under-construction Wiki.
Zuck et al can change names/umbrellas once again, just like Blackwater recently
did. To escape bad reputation by morphing is not so easy when you know the
names of the people involved and soon realise where their wage comes from. It
just makes it harder to search or inquire by company names, assuming there is
no proper mapping between old and new identities.
http://boycottnovell.com/2009/03/27/primer-jonathan-zuck-and-act/
- --
~~ Best of wishes
"Hey, Steve, just because you broke into Xerox’s store before I did and took
the TV doesn’t mean I can’t go in later and steal the stereo."
--Bill Gates, Microsoft
http://Schestowitz.com | RHAT Linux | PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
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