Bonum Certa Men Certa

Government Cronyism Watch: Microsoft Inside FCC, California, Washington, and Bahrain

FCC logo



Summary: Latest examples of Microsoft entering the non-commercial arena and influencing decisions so as to help its bottom line

THE FCC family grows and the latest addition is covered by BusinessWeek, which says:

‘Sexiest Man’ Joins Navy Admiral, Microsoft Veteran at New FCC



[...]

Also among Genachowski’s recruits are retired Navy Rear Admiral James Barnett Jr., 56, who is chief of the FCC’s bureau of public safety and homeland security; Steven VanRoekel, 40, the agency’s managing director, who came from Microsoft Corp.; and Steven Waldman, 47, founder of beliefnet.com, which offers prayers and commentary to help users seeking spiritual guidance. Waldman, a former Newsweek correspondent, heads an FCC task force on the state of the media.

[...]

VanRoekel oversees the agency’s day-to-day operations. The former Microsoft executive and aide to founder Gates on speeches and strategy says he has worked to boost technology use since arriving to find an agency where “the status quo was the norm.”


We wrote about this tactless appointment before [1, 2]. The FCC took on Apple just weeks after VanRoekel had become the Managing Director of the FCC. But anyway, why does BusinessWeek care so much about a man's appearance? It's not as though people should vote for someone based on whether he is "Sexiest Man" or not.

Apropos, a couple of weeks ago Schwarzenegger put himself in Microsoft's pocket and now he's getting bitten in the rear. From the San Francisco press we now learn:

Glitches in Microsoft's California vouchers



[...]

Last week, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger visited Microsoft Corp.'s Silicon Valley campus to announce that the tech company would hand out more than 70,000 training vouchers through the state's One-Stop Career Centers. The idea was to give Californians - whether unemployed or working - a chance to take online computer courses and get free tests to certify their skills.

This Microsoft-sponsored program, called Elevate America, mainly offers intermediate training in office programs - Word, Access, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Vista - with some vouchers set aside to provide advanced online training to people hoping to work in computer administration.

[..]

Microsoft has run this same program in 12 other states and officials say the average completion rate has been just 30 percent - giving local workforce boards a chance to improve on that ratio by making sure that Californians follow through and take advantage of the training.


This is just nationwide dumping, as we have already explained. Microsoft tries to indoctrinate everyone by means of Windows and Office "training" that it "donates". This programme is mostly being used in the US, but there are similar things going on in the UK. We gave examples.

To the US government, Microsoft is the tail that wags the dog. Last month we showed that a former Microsoft manager (Hunter) had entered the government where he is now helping Microsoft escape tax [1, 2, 3]. Microsoft's darling press, the Seattle Times, still seems to be unwilling to cover this blunder; instead it says that "State tax break entices tech firms to build data centers"

Legislators and businesses have been worried about losing new data centers to other states since Microsoft, citing the state's tax law, moved its cloud- computing platform Azure out of Washington to another U.S. data center. The news was distressing to the Grant County town of Quincy, where Yahoo, Microsoft and Intuit have built large server farms, drawn to the county's cheap and green hydropower.

Server farms send data and software across the Internet to users and to Web sites around the world. Microsoft continues to operate a data center in Quincy but chose last year not to expand Azure there. Running a server farm requires large amounts of energy and bandwidth.


The Seattle Times should be shamed of itself for continuing to ignore a serious fiasco that hurts citizens of Seattle. Is this publication paid by Microsoft in any way (directly or indirectly)? There's quite a déjà vu here because other Seattle or Redmond 'publications' are dedicated just to Microsoft boosting and some masquerade as government-oriented Web sites that offer impartial advice to governments.

“The Seattle Times should be shamed of itself for continuing to ignore a serious fiasco that hurts citizens of Seattle.”Here is the latest example of Microsoft promotion as an 'article' in one these Web sites; Microsoft seems to have gotten its own magazines to sell its products and deceive readers (under the the illusion that these are "news" sites). Here is one new example and another one. These new articles may seem like news, but they are embedded in sites that are named after Microsoft products. It's an insult to real news sites and it dilutes authentic reporting as a whole. Shouldn't the FCC look into such issues of misreporting (or improper media centralisation)? Oh wait, the FCC would not care because it's partly run by a former colleague of Gates and Ballmer. It's all just PR from a highly PR-dependent company that he used to work for, so why would he care?

Speaking of government influence, Microsoft will have a conference in Costa Mesa next week and we also learn that it has "workshops" in Bahrain, where these simply enable Microsoft to send instructions to people who make decisions:

Furthering its commitment to promote good government practices through the use of technology, Microsoft Bahrain today announced that it hosted a workshop for senior technology executives from the various entities within the Government of Bahrain.


This is wrong on very many levels. No wonder so many governments blindly sign contracts with Microsoft and sometimes get sued for it by their citizens. In some cases, the lawsuits come from competitors. Take Switzerland for example. We covered it in:

  1. Microsoft Sued Over Its Corruption in Switzerland, Microsoft Debt Revisited
  2. Can the United Kingdom and Hungary Still be Sued for Excluding Free Software?
  3. 3 New Counts of Antitrust Violation by Microsoft?
  4. Is Microsoft Breaking the Law in Switzerland Too?
  5. Microsoft Uses Lobbyists to Attack Holland's Migration to Free Software and Sort of Bribes South African Teachers Who Use Windows
  6. ZDNet/eWeek Ruins Peter Judge's Good Article by Attacking Red Hat When Microsoft Does the Crime
  7. Week of Microsoft Government Affairs: a Look Back, a Look Ahead
  8. Lawsuit Against Microsoft/Switzerland Succeeds So Far, More Countries/Companies Should Follow Suit
  9. Latest Reports on Microsoft Bulk Deals Being Blocked in Switzerland, New Zealand
  10. Swiss Government and Federal Computer Weekly: Why the Hostility Towards Free Software?
  11. Switzerland and the UK Under Fire for Perpetual Microsoft Engagements
  12. Lawsuit Over Alleged Microsoft Corruption in Switzerland Escalates to Federal Court


Microsoft's manufactured 'studies' are another important subject that we mentioned last week (Microsoft uses these for government lobbying) and here is the latest example.

Microsoft’s Worldwide Utility Industry Survey 2010 is their latest attempt at doing this, and while this is not really a major study, there are a handful of meaningful conclusions that I think will – and should – resonate with utilities.


In the next post about the Gates Foundation we will show the latest 'studies' that they fund to serve themselves. This type of behaviour ought to be exposed because it only adds 'noise' to the debate and it harms citizens for the benefit of few large corporations.

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

The Register Bill
The Register MS - putting the "MS" in your centre of the universe
Analogies for "Memory Safety" in Rust
Don't worry, it's Rust! It can do anything!
 
Links 06/09/2025: "Covid Incidence on the Rise" and Many Attacks on the Press Worldwide
Links for the day
Nobody Denies That SecureBoot Will Cause Problems After September 11
Not even Microsoft
Gemini Links 06/09/2025: Infinite Scrolling and Posting from Emacs
Links for the day
Links 06/09/2025: GitHub Meltdown Over Slop, "U.S. Jury Says Google Should Pay $425 Million in Privacy Lawsuit"
Links for the day
Despite Its Severe Financial Problems Gnome Foundation Inc Paid Rosanna Yuen Over 100,000 Dollars Last Year
maybe relocation should be considered
The "Left" and the Right"
It poisons everything
Mozilla and Rust Are Not Leftists
they're part of the mass consumerism machine
Disposable to Microsoft
There is an extensive set of people who got used by Microsoft, only to be thrown away a month later or a year later or a decade later
The UEFI 9/11 - Part VII - This Coming Week Many PCs Will Refuse to Boot "Linux" (Because of Microsoft's Expired Certificate)
The real solution is, disable "secure boot" or "SecureBoot" while it's still possible. [...] Just like submarine patents, a lot of this problem was "hibernating" for a while
The Thing Nobody in Red Hat Wants to Talk About Openly
There is a real sentiment or worry among Red Hatters, Europeans and Americans in particulars (because of higher salary expectations)
Slopwatch: Small Parade of Fake News About "Linux" and Scams Borrowing the Name (or Word) "Linux"
In practice, LLMs are a risk
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, September 05, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, September 05, 2025
Genini Links 05/09/2025: Community, ROOPHLOCH, and PITkit
Links for the day
Links 05/09/2025: Vaccine Sceptics Poison the Well, Two Exploited Vulnerabilities Patched in Android
Links for the day
Gemini Links 05/09/2025: Logitech Lift and DIY Gemini Servers
Links for the day
Links 05/09/2025: Sainsbury's Caught Spying on In-Store Shoppers and Microsoft "OpenAI is Using Legal Threats to Harass its Critics"
Links for the day
BASIC Predates Microsoft by Over a Decade, Microsoft-Controlled Sites Like The Register MS Don't Want You to Know This
The state of the media is really bad when it relies a lot on oligarchs' money and is appointing editors who are working for oligarchs
Brian Kernighan, "Only Third to Dennis Richie and Ken Thompson" (UNIX), Agreed With Someone Who Said Rust Was Just Hype, Should Not Replace C
17 hours ago
Reminder: Microsoft's "Secure Boot" Certificate for "Linux" Will be Expired in One Week
Many PCs won't manage to 'rotate' to another certificate
"Many of the Red Hat Employees Are Still Looking for Work"
Shame on IBM's CEO
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, September 04, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, September 04, 2025
Microsoft Started With Code Literally From The Trash, Nothing Has Improved Since
The reality is, there are systems and code that are reliable. But they're not Microsoft's.
Hypothesis That New McKinsey/Microsoft Executive Inside Red Hat Will Outsource Research and Development Operations to India (Like They Do in IBM)
IBM is floundering
Slopwatch: Scams, Fake Articles About "Linux", Plagiarism, and Worse
Perhaps some time soon the LLMs or the "Big LLMs" will run out of money (to borrow) and go offline, leaving those slopfarms in a tough place
Gemini Links 04/09/2025: Means of Production and Rusting Out
Links for the day
Links 04/09/2025: Science, Hardware, and Eyes on China
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/09/2025: Digital Minimalism and Social Control Media
Links for the day
IBM's GNU/Linux Divestment, Based on Hard But Anecdotal Evidence (IBM Fails to Recognise How Much Money It Made and Can Still Make From "Linux")
Love us or hate us, a lot of what we've been saying about Red Hat under IBM turns out to be rather accurate
Links 04/09/2025: Massive Microsoft Staff Cuts (Barely Reported), "Strange Conspiracy Theory Is Reportedly Spreading Inside OpenAI"
Links for the day
Activists Can Win, But Keep an Eye on the Ball and on the Trophy
GitHub is dying, it was a loss-making trap, not free hosting
Gemini Links 04/09/2025: Katrina Remembered, Distracted Driving, and Virtual Economics
Links for the day
At This Point It's No Longer Matthew Garrett But People Who Fund Matthew Garrett (or Companies That Fund His SLAPPs Against My Wife and I)
The only thing worse than misogynists are misogynists who fail to respect other people's right to go on holiday
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, September 03, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, September 03, 2025
The UEFI 9/11 - Part VI - This Serious Harm Was Planned for Over a Decade, Not an Accident or Merely Some Misfortune
The term "Serious Harm" is legally meaningful here
GNOME Unfit for Diversity and Inclusion
GNOME's leadership is using "bad words"
Brodie Robertson Addressing the Recently-Discovered Comments
Most people probably knew nothing about this until he wrote a response
Red Hat QA Team "Had Shrunk by Half Over the Past Year." (After IBM Divestment)
If Red Hat's workforce is being moved to the East, then RHEL can become a national security problem
Slopwatch: "Open Source" and "Linux" News Faked, Made by Bots and Entered Into Google News
Spam combined with slop about "Linux" has entered Google News