04.27.10
Posted in Europe, Microsoft, Patents at 8:26 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Klaus-Heiner Lehne / Source: Europa.eu
Summary: A look at one of the software patent culprits, who advances personal agenda at the expense of Europe’s
WHEN it comes to software patents in Europe, lobbyists in their favour are rarely people who work in the software industry. Rather, they are lawyers, lobbyists, and software monopolies that hire lobbyists like CompTIA and ACT.
‘Lehne was a partner at Taylor Wessing, which advises clients [on] “software patents”‘
–Benjamin Henrion, FFIIKlaus-Heiner Lehne has been a key lobbyist for software patents in Europe and his conflicts of interest have been known for a while. We wrote about him here and discussed his position a little further in this post about Bilski. Lehne was one of the MEPs pushing strongly for software patents and in 2007 we cited an analysis that said: “It now appears that Lehne works as a Brussels lobbying consultant for multinational corporations who are the main clients of one of the leading lawfirms for patent litigation in Europe, which is also itself involved in patent lobbying and closely connected to lobbying organisations.”
“Lehne was a partner at Taylor Wessing, which advises clients [on] “software patents”,” explained Benjamin Henrion (the president of the FFII) a few hours ago. “Taylor Wessing’s clients include SAP,” he alleges and here is the full document [PDF] which in page 96 says: “Kauppi, in fact, only just pipped two of her colleagues to the title for ‘Worst Conflict of Interest’ in the public vote. The runners-up were British MEP Caroline Jackson and Germany’s Klaus-Heiner Lehne.”
Later on the document gives many more details about Lehne’s role:
Patently absurd?
Just behind Jackson in the public vote for the Conflict of Interest Award was German lawyer and MEP Klaus-Heiner Lehne, a member of the European Parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee. Lehne has been one of the most influential backers of the EU software patents directive which, according to critics, granted large corporations stronger intellectual property rights over software. At the same time Lehne was a partner at the law firm Taylor Wessing, which advises clients “on patenting strategy in the software sector”.16 Taylor Wessing’s clients include SAP, the world’s largest business software company.17
Lehne sees no conflict of interest in being an MEP involved in EU patent legislation and acting as a lawyer to clients on patents. “Being a lawyer and being an MEP in the Legal Affairs Committee of the Parliament is normal”, he says.18
An influential MEP who worked with Lehne on the patents directive is the British Liberal Democrat MEP Sharon Bowles, who is a patent lawyer19 and a partner in a patent firm (along with her husband Andrew Horton, a European patent attorney).20 Critics ask if it is possible for Bowles to “see the other side of the debate” given that she is so in favour of patents. Bowles maintains that there is no “conflict of interest with me being an MEP and a patent lawyer, as I am not practising. Technically I do maintain my ability to practise because of my partner in the business, my husband”.21
Another influential player in the software patents directive debate was the ‘Campaign for Creativity’, which won the 2005 Worst EU Lobbying Award.22 The man behind the campaign, Simon Gentry, noted that Sharon Bowles had been key as she had “excelled in putting the case for our side of the argument”.23 Bowles did not like being criticised about her commercial links and rather dramatically likened her critics to the “forces of evil”.24
[...]
16 Taylor Wessing, Patents, brochure, 2006.
17 In 2005, a spokesman for SAP denied working with Taylor Wessing. However information supplied by SAP to the website ‘Virtual law’, lists SAP as a client of Taylor Wessing. http://www.virtuallaw.eu/taylor-wessing.html
18 Klaus-Heiner Lehne, email to Andy Rowell, 17 June 2008.
19 Sharon Bowles, Declaration of Members’ Financial Interests, 2006.
20 According to Bowles biography on Liberal Democrat website.
21 Sharon Bowles, interview with Andy Rowell, May 2008.
22 See the website of the 2005 Worst EU Lobbying Awards: http://www.worstlobby.eu/2005.
23 Corporate Europe Observatory, How the Campaign for Creativity morphed into the Innovation and Creativity Group (Amsterdam: November 2006).
24 Sharon Bowles, interview with Andy Rowell, May 2008.
Why is Lehne still serving in the parliament? He obviously does not serve Europe; instead he is serving his own bank account and colleagues. █
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Posted in Bill Gates, Deception, Microsoft, Windows at 7:46 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: An increasing number of informed individuals will do whatever is possible to explain Gates’ ego trip, which puts schools and colleges at high risk of becoming private (but publicly funded)
“Boycott Microsoft,” says this new article about the Gates Foundation. The article alleges that Bill Gates not only monopolised the software industry (by repeatedly and knowingly breaking laws) but that he also monoplises the education system at the moment, using a financial vehicle which he claims to be a “philanthropy”. This is a subject that we explored and explained many times before and here is how the new article puts it:
Every so often we glimpse small stories stuck into the back pages of the corporate press on the continuing payouts by Microsoft for settlements to years-old State claims that Gates “had stifled competition and broken state antitrust laws by overcharging consumers for software and computers.” California settled for $1.1 billion, and this story last week shows more payouts continuing today, with Wisconsin figuring out how it will use $80 million that Gates promised years ago while continuing to deny any wrongdoing.
So bare-knuckled tactics are nothing new to the Gates team, as Bill’s cadre of crooks continue to demonstrate in the big all-in bet to help Arne stifle any competition in the rigged RTTT, corporate ed reform’s blueprint for the dismantling of public schools and the destruction of the teaching profession. Eerily, this is the same pattern of philanthro-capitalist bullying that Gates has used in other venues to restrict any diversity of views within the World Health Organization in the fight against malaria, as documented by Diane Ravitch in her new book:
The chief of malaria research for the World Health Organization, Dr. Arata Kochi, complained in 2008 that the Gates Foundation was stifling a diversity of views among scientists, because so many of the world’s leading scientist in the field were “locked up in a ‘cartel’ with their own research funding being linked to those of others within the group,” making it difficult to get independent reviews of research. The foundation’s decision-making process, he charged, was “a closed internal process, and as far as can be seen, accountable to none other than itself” (p. 204).
Ravitch’s analysis was covered here last week. There is more of this in the news, e.g.:
• Book review: ‘The Death and Life of the Great American School System,’ by Diane Ravitch
The damage, she says, has been compounded by the well-meaning but ultimately misguided efforts of a new group of powerful private foundations, of which the Seattle-based Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is the most prominent.
“Never in the history of the United States was there a foundation as rich and powerful as the Gates Foundation,” Ravitch writes. “Never was there one that sought to steer state and national policy in education. And never before was there a foundation that gave grants to almost every major think tank and advocacy group in the field of education, leaving almost no one willing to criticize its vast power and unchecked influence.”
• Updates to the Science Shelf plus a new review – edited with addition
NCLB has not been the only factor undermining our schools, Ravitch writes. A new group of powerful private foundations, of which the Seattle-based Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is the most prominent, have embraced education reform. The contributions of this “Billionaire Boys’ Club” have also come with heavy doses of advocacy.
“Never in the history of the United States was there a foundation as rich and powerful as the Gates Foundation,” Ravitch writes. “Never was there one that sought to steer state and national policy in education. And never before was there a foundation that gave grants to almost every major think tank and advocacy group in the field of education, leaving almost no one willing to criticize its vast power and unchecked influence.”
To its credit, the Foundation has been diligent in analyzing the impact of its grant money. “In late 2008,” Ravitch notes, “the Gates Foundation announced that it was changing course. Its $2 billion investment in new small high schools had not been especially successful.”
• Diane Ravitch: Charter Schools Won’t Save the School System
Gates does to decision-making in schools what he does to decision-making in health. Two years ago the New York Times wrote that “The chief of malaria for the World Health Organization has complained that the growing dominance of malaria research by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation risks stifling a diversity of views among scientists and wiping out the world health agency’s policy-making function.”
It’s the same strategy all over again.
We have more new examples here. What the article does not make explicit enough is that there are strings attached to Gates’ investments in schools.
Hillsborough hires 100 peer evaluators for its $100 million Gates reforms
[...]
This week, the district named about 100 teachers to serve as peer evaluators under its seven-year reform effort with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
$110 million is a very small price to pay in order to change the education agenda in one’s own favour. More new coverage from The Wall Street Journal:
The pledge, signed at the annual meeting of the American Association of Community Colleges in Seattle, was followed by an announcement there that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation would pump as much as $110 million into replacing lackluster remedial-education programs at community colleges, long a barrier to graduation.
This is an investment and not a donation; there is also some low-cost PR [1, 2, 3, 4, 5], perhaps part of the PR which gives them influence in education and does not cost much at all. Sooner or later we find Gates Foundation staff telling them what to do and how.
Yesterday we presented one example of this and now we are seeing more lobbying by the Gates Foundation in colleges.
For years, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle has pushed high schools to work harder to graduate more students.
That’s a lot of “pushing”.
Since when are Bill & Melinda Gates the ministers of education [1, 2, 3, 4]? Did anyone elect them or are they self appointed? This is the type of thing Diane Ravitch warned about. As usual, Gates’ worshippers at philanthropy.com play along with his party line. See the comments in this post. Not everyone is naive and people begin to realise what Gates is really up to.
Here is the Gates Foundation taking over schools with more new grants, which leads to yet more privatisation and agenda-setting:
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation — which has become a major player in financing and agenda setting in community college education — was involved in bringing the various groups together, and the signing of the statement will take place just before Melinda Gates addresses the community college leaders.
Last week we wrote about Gates’ college tour (also covered the week before that) where Gates “Pushes His… Agenda,” to use the words from the headline of this article from Boston (Gates delivered his presentation for PR purposes also at MIT). As we indicated last week, Ina Fried was there to do the PR/advertising under the disguise of “journalism”. What an arrogant display of power and what an enormous risk to tomorrow’s schools and colleges.
At the same time we see that Microsoft still fights against OLPC and other such initiatives that spread GNU/Linux and make information a commodity. Microsoft calls it “no byte left unused”, which is a spinful euphemism that refers to:
Microsoft in new ‘no byte left unused’ deal with schools
Schools may no longer have to match the number of PCs in their IT labs with the student population, courtesy of Microsoft’s shared resource computing.
Under the programme, schools will put their computers’ capacity to optimal use and that institutions will realise savings on their information, communications and technology equipment acquisition, maintenance and support cost.
“No byte left unused” is a revealing slogan. Unlike “no child left behind”, this is neither about children nor advancement; it is about using them.
In short, it’s just another attempt by Microsoft to control schools. It has nothing to do with education or freedom. We wrote about what Microsoft is doing to education for quite a few years now. This is a pattern that we see all the time. Microsoft tries to indoctrinate the young people (for Windows and Office use) at a very young ages and at taxpayers’ own expense, sometimes also tying their personal data to Microsoft servers and formats (which makes it virtually impossible for them to ever escape). The important point is that the Gates Foundation contributes to this behind the scenes. Ain’t philanthrocapitalism just grand? █
“Education and training: Target both developer and knowledge worker environment; Money and resources for curriculum development; Money and resources for teacher training; Subsidized certification on MS products”
–Confidential Microsoft document [PDF]
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Posted in Bill Gates, GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Office Suites, Windows at 7:08 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
“Approved” curriculum
Summary: Breeding a generation of identical and docile human beings who are enslaved to Microsoft’s closed-source toolset
LAST WEEK we wrote about how the Gates Foundation makes people "addicted" to Microsoft. They start in the Unites States where they pay for so-called ‘studies’ and media blitz; then, they expand outwards.
In general, we also routinely explain how Gates has blocked or at least suppressed GNU/Linux in public libraries. That was earlier this month and now we find another perspective:
The Gates Foundation funds computers in public libraries and the FBI can snoop on the poor
The Gates Foundation loves to pay for computers in public libraries. How do you know if the FBI is snooping on you on that computer? You don’t. These computers are used mostly by the poor.
The Gates Foundation is expanding its libraries push to other parts of the world, which ought to help Microsoft.
President of Lithuania Dalia Grybauskaite received Deborah J. Jacobs, Director of Global Libraries for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Janet Sawaya, Program Officer for the foundation’s Global Libraries initiative, to discuss the Libraries for Progress project carried out in Lithuania, its results and perspectives, informed BC press service of the president.
Is there any place in the world where Gates and Microsoft have not yet mobilised and colonised? Maybe Antarctica. █
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Posted in Africa, America, Bill Gates, Deception, Finance, Microsoft, Patents at 6:56 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: The acts of Microsoft’s co-founder are as monopolistic and self-serving as ever, but the PR efforts obscure the true nature of this situation; this post sheds light on what the press does not tell (or rarely tells) readers
THE scandal around big tobacco business was covered here last week. The short story is that Bill’s Gates Foundation was backing tobacco, even though it was masked as anti-tobacco (or “tobacco prevention”). As GatesKeepers (a longtime watcher of the Gates Foundation) put it, the response from the Gates Foundation had wrinkles in it:
This statement makes it sound as if the Gates Foundation didn’t have a project officer looking after the IDRC tobacco grant. Huh?
GatesKeepers is citing this article and as we pointed out last week, the Gates Foundation’s investment in tobacco goes a few years back when it was known. It seems more like it’s pretending not to have known what it invested in. Two days beforehand, GatesKeepers argued that: “The Gates Foundation, by announcing termination of the grant [for tobacco group], has claimed high moral ground. But the Foundation has been asleep at the wheel. They were forced to terminate the grant due to a conference boycott. How could they NOT know about the conflict of interest earlier?”
Exactly.
“The mainstream press missed the real story and instead played along with PR statements.”Like we proposed last week, the Gates Foundation ought to have known all along, but it “retreated” and pretended to be a victim, even though it had knowingly invested in tobacco for years (it also invests in alcoholic beverages). The mainstream press missed the real story and instead played along with PR statements. All they had to do is sniff around the tobacco fiasco in Canada and dig a little deeper. Gates has some other controversial relationships with the Canadian government, some of which continue to receive coverage even from The New York Times and the Canadian Press. For prior posts about Gates’ vaccination project in Canada (and the cancellation), see [1, 2, 3, 4]. We are also seeing some new vaccination initiatives in Africa . “Gates Foundation staff visits northern Nigeria to tell them what to do,” says GatesKeepers.
Wouldn’t it be better for northern Nigerians to make the call to end polio in northern Nigerial rather than someone from the Gates Foundation?
Africa’s polio push, where Gates employees give instructions, deserves a closer look. It’s akin to the tobacco fiasco.
Gates’ worshippers at philanthropy.com do no further investigation into it, despite recent blunders such as Gates-funded vaccines that allegedly killed girls. Gates allocates more money for the purpose of vaccination in Africa, which in a nutshell becomes a problem mostly because of patents that the public is forced to pay for (to make Gates richer).
“[T]he Gates Foundation is among the reasons for polio because of its investments in petrol companies that harm Nigerian children with unrestrained emissions.”As an important reminder from the Los Angeles Times, the Gates Foundation is among the reasons for polio because of its investments in petrol companies that harm Nigerian children with unrestrained emissions. The Los Angeles Times criticised Gates a few years ago as his investments are among the causes for these diseases. Some of the press is now saying that the Gates Foundation “urges Northern rulers to fight polio”, which is reminiscent of the foundation’s so-called ‘fight’ against smoking while investing a lot of money in big tobacco companies.
There is this thing called “Rotary” which Gates gives money to, but how come nobody talks about how Gates’ investments actually contribute to polio?
A major Rotary emphasis for several decades has been the “Polio-Plus” campaign designed to eradicate polio and other devastating illnesses in the world. Since its launch in 1985, reported cases have dropped from 350,000 to less than 2,000 cases a year, a 99 percent decrease. Today only four countries in the world are still fighting polio, but Rotary International has recently accepted a matching-grants challenge from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to raise enough money to finally conquer this disease worldwide. In just three years, the Dalton club has fulfilled the six-year goal of committing $6,000 towards Rotary’s $200 million goal to match the Gates Foundation challenge grant. Further fundraising activities at the district conference raised enough money to immunize some 4000 children against polio and will be used by the Rotary Foundation for that purpose.
The Gates Foundation’s “challenge grant” is akin to those attempts from Gates to rally governments to give their money to companies that he invests in (their patents). “Challenge grant” is not the same as donation and we gave an example yesterday (about Monsanto).
The sentimental blackmail we are seeing in Africa is not to be taken at face value. There is a lot of money at stake because Africa has plenty of resources, it serves as a good breeding ground for experimentation with GMO, and it also serves as a good platform for experimentation with new drugs (if people die as a result of the experiments, then they won’t sue because they can’t). We continue to view with great caution the type of research Gates advances in Africa (same here) and yesterday we wrote about Monsanto's relationship with Bill Gates, noting in part that Gates had begun recruiting celebrity politicians like Timothy Geithner to market GMO along with him. A few days ago we learned that Gates is now using Colin Powell to market his “malaria campaign”. Considering Gates' investment in companies like Novartis, there is certainly money to be made here.
“[T]he racketeering operation known as “Intellectual Ventures” is also directly involved in this malaria project.”Let us remember that the President of the Global Health Program at the Gates Foundation carries a felonious baggage because he threatened academics who challenged his pharmaceutical agenda. These are the sorts of people who are working on this project and as we showed two weeks ago, the racketeering operation known as “Intellectual Ventures” is also directly involved in this malaria project. This has warning signs all over it. Intellectual Ventures is the world’s biggest patent troll, it is not a charity.
Here is a new article about the bully whom Microsoft appointed to become the President of the Global Health Program. These publication don’t write anything about his shady past. Other suspicious staff is in the same foundation, including the CFO who joined a few weeks ago from Merck (see references therein for information about Merck’s serious offenses and corruption).
Here is an interesting article from last week. It starts by saying:
The Lancet has just published the study, which was financed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the World Health Organization (WHO). The WHO is now being examined for its handling of the swine flu so-called pandemic. They stand accused of being in bed with pharmaceutical corporations to promote the use of vaccines. One of the Gates Foundation’s primary goals is to promote vaccines.
We wrote about this 'study' last week. It is self serving (showing the required outcome even though the results were publicly challenged by scientists without massive PR departments) as Gates too makes money from investments in this. The following new example seems to combine GMO with pharmaceuticals:
Amyris manipulates micro-organisms, primarily yeasts, so that they consume sugar and produce a desired product, which could be diesel, jet fuel, or other chemical products. The company founders had originally received a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to use its process for an antimalaria drug.
In the next couple of posts we will look at how the Gates Foundation encourages its rise in influence/monopolisation in other areas (along with Microsoft). █
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Posted in Asia, Bill Gates, Free/Libre Software, Google, Microsoft at 4:37 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Microsoft’s very latest moves whose goal is to vacuum people’s personal information/profiles/medical records
According to this new press release, which is already covered in some news sites (e.g. [1, 2]), Microsoft is spreading SharePoint lock-in through schools, with the help of ePals. Another new press release shows that Microsoft does the same thing with Open Text.
Later on we are going to address Bill Gates’ influence on schools and what role it plays in ensuring that schools become indoctrination facilities for Microsoft (as far as computer education is concerned, not education as a whole). With its new partnerships, Microsoft is not only pushing "Live@edu" into schools (to manage the lives of their students from Microsoft servers); Groklaw was concerned enough about it to cite a roundup from a Microsoft-oriented site covering the financial results [1, 2, 3] and also the aforementioned deal with ePals. It says:
Microsoft is teaming with education-technology company ePals Inc. to expand the presence of the Redmond company’s email, calendar and other technologies in schools. Under the agreement, announced this morning, ePals says it will expand its service by offering Microsoft’s Exchange-based “Live@edu” system to millions of its users, which includes teachers, students and parents in 200 countries and territories. Among other plans, the companies say they’ll also work together to roll out Microsoft’s upcoming Office Web Apps in schools.
This is an abomination for reasons we explained before. Students are not only being brainwashed for Microsoft; their whole life is also being put on Microsoft’s turf and managed by Microsoft. This privatisation of education is a serious matter we will properly address later today or tomorrow. Here is another bit of ZDNet coverage about the ePals deal:
ePals, a leader in connecting students, classrooms, and educational activities worldwide with safe, secure email and Web 2.0 platforms, announced today that it has signed a “strategic technical collaboration agreement” with Microsoft. ePals will integrate Microsoft’s Live@Edu offerings with their extensive network for millions of users worldwide while the two companies will continue to expand their integration in the future with Office Web Apps and features of Sharepoint Online.
Embrace and extend, anyone?
This scheme is also being advertised by Microsoft's friends at O'Reilly, who call this “smarter school infrastructure”. Surely they jest, right?
Our reader Omar brought us some thoughts from Jordan and examples about Microsoft’s Live@edu scheme, which is also trying to take over his country’s universities and administration. Microsoft forms other new deals in the Middle East/Gulf [1, 2, 3] as it is trying to take over the Arabic world with its proprietary software.
The further integration of Arabic language capabilities in internet and other technological architecture will grant millions access to the digital world, Microsoft and Google executives said.
Neither Google nor Microsoft belong there because they vend proprietary software. There are perfectly fine building blocks that are Free software and any country ought to build its infrastructure with them (the private sector can do as it wishes, but not governments elected by their people). Going further east all the way to Taiwan, Microsoft's center for 'clouds' (established with actual help from the same government that found Microsoft guilty of antitrust abuses) makes a leap as the government helps the monopolist take over the infrastructure, first with just “research” [1, 2, 3, 4] and later with a political agenda of invading people’s data (including sensitive government information like medical records), not just their computer software. This is accompanied by what seems like an advertisement in Asia and more help from Microsoft booster Todd Bishop, who apparently sees nothing wrong without Microsoft’s greed for people’s medical records amid intense lobbying. What next? Microsoft to collect DNA samples from all people, ‘on behalf’ of governments? It’s already close to that in India.
“First, Microsoft broke the law to build a monopoly on tools that people manage their data with.”Microsoft says that users will “win” if they let Microsoft manage their data and it also says something along the lines of “trust us”, which is the classic type of sentence people say when they cannot and shouldn’t be trusted. Microsoft has spurred a big wave of more articles with 'cloud' hype and why governments and businesses ought to embrace ‘clouds’, as long as "evil" Google is not controlling them.
First, Microsoft broke the law to build a monopoly on tools that people manage their data with. And now, several years later, Microsoft wants people’s data too. █
“Privacy protects us from abuses by those in power, even if we’re doing nothing wrong at the time of surveillance.”
–Bruce Schneier
“Microsoft should put its own house in order on privacy rather than waving about a discredited blueprint as a model for others… This attempt to portray itself as a leader in consumer privacy is as preposterous as the notion that it has treated its competitors with high standards of business ethics.”
–Junkbusters President Jason Catlett
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Posted in Deception, Google, Microsoft, Office Suites, Search at 3:24 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Microsoft’s close ties with NetProspex; AstroTurfing group “Consumer Watchdog” attacks Google; Microsoft’s privacy violations in Hotmail highlight Microsoft’s hypocrisy
SOCIOPATHS WHO RUN MICROSOFT have a long history of AstroTurfing. Friendship is the exception at Microsoft, not the norm. After all, Microsoft stabs its partners in the back. When Microsoft approaches (anti-)social Web sites like Facebook*, it is only looking to see what it can get out of them (advertising, search bars, Silver Lie inclusion, etc.) and the latest example that we gave was Facebook's promotion of Microsoft Office. Joe Wilcox calls it “the surest sign yet of Microsoft’s defeat”
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg made some amazing announcements yesterday, during the f8 conference. Docs.com wasn’t one of them.
Microsoft will try to use this to ensure that Facebook users have their data stuck in Microsoft formats and Microsoft sites/services. But another more interesting item that we found comes from a company called NetProspex, which is essentially funded by Microsoft (a major client, see the screenshot at the top) and it currently praises Microsoft, portraying it as social. Sure, it’s funny. The Microsoft boosters use this to generate hype and there is a lot of deceitful press coverage about it (no disclosure though).
NetProspex has Microsoft as one of its major customers (shown in the front page even, as one among just 3 companies) and a PR blitz is the least it can do to repay Microsoft (the site’s profiles seem like they are all about Microsoft). We attempted to find staff listings to see if former Microsoft employees run this company, but there is no such listing that we could find.
“Last year we also wrote about Consumer Watchdog. It is a group of AstroTurfers, probably like LawMedia, which Microsoft hired to AstroTurf against the Yahoo!-Google deal.”There is nothing too unusual about this. Microsoft is “social”, says a company that’s being paid by Microsoft. Likewise, we have come across an anti-Google study which was conducted by former Microsoft employees (also without disclosure). Then there are cases like comScore, which is a Microsoft partner [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10] that serves statistics in a way Microsoft likes.
Last year we also wrote about Consumer Watchdog. It is a group of AstroTurfers, probably like LawMedia, which Microsoft hired to AstroTurf against the Yahoo!-Google deal. According to many headlines, “Consumer Watchdog” is at it again [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8]. Basically, this AstroTurfing group which we suspect to be funded by Microsoft through their parent company which is all about AstroTurf, has asked the US DOJ to “break up Google.” Well, the DOJ is already in Microsoft’s pocket [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8] because of its staff (post the DOJ vs Microsoft case). Combined with Microsoft AstroTurfing, this is an iffy recipe. IDG has attempted to speak to the DOJ about this (also in PC World) but got nothing:
A DOJ spokeswoman declined to comment on Consumer Watchdog’s request.
Other, more legitimate complaints about Google (from governments even [1, 2]) are being obscured by the AstroTurfers, “Consumer Watchdog” (it’s not about consumers and it’s not a watchdog, it’s a gun for hire). As we pointed out at the start, Microsoft has a history of hiring AstroTurfers to fight against Google. LawMedia is just one good example as it eventually enabled Microsoft to hijack Yahoo. Microsoft’s coup d’état is still being mentioned in some news sites and Yahoo’s collapse carries on now that the company’s head of advertising is said to be leaving. Will a former Microsoft employee occupy this position too? Microsoft has just injected some money into Yahoo! (as they agreed), making the company only more dependent on Microsoft. The news about Yahoo!’s latest results had “Microsoft” all over it. One might think that Yahoo! is just a Microsoft subsidiary now. Had it not been for Microsoft’s AstroTurfing with the LawMedia Group (and others), Yahoo! would be working alongside Google right about now.
Another thing is this: since Microsoft loves to accuse Google of privacy violations, here is something from the news which shows that “Hotmail’s social networking busts your privacy”; this headline comes from a Windows site.
In its rush to take on Facebook and Google Buzz, Microsoft is now collecting and displaying personal information on your Hotmail page — information you may never have wanted to broadcast.
Exactly how it’s mining this information is something of a mystery, but if you use Hotmail or Windows Live, it’s time to review your privacy settings — lest something you said or did comes back to haunt you.
Google is not without its flaws, but it is not Microsoft’s role to hire fake protesters against Google. Here is Google using an “Advocacy Group” to capture developers.
Google may be stepping up its efforts to have developers pay attention to Android. The search giant – or rather, a division of it known as the “Android Advocacy Group” – has supposedly gone on the offensive, emailing a developer and offering him (or her) a free device.
There is nothing too nefarious here. It’s called “Advocacy”, not “Evangelism”, which is Microsoft’s code for AstroTurfing. █
______
* One ought to remember that Microsoft is among Facebook’s investors.
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04.26.10
Posted in Africa, America, Free/Libre Software, GNU/Linux at 8:16 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to no longer breathe free…”
Summary: Microsoft is dumping on poor people in South Africa while indoctrinating the unemployed citizens of the United States
COVERING Microsoft can become a little tedious when the same patterns of operation repeat themselves and require new explanations with new victim names. One branch of Microsoft tricks we typically just lump together with EDGI, which is Microsoft’s way of fighting against Free software in impoverished areas of the world or areas that simply migrate to GNU/Linux (Microsoft calls these “Linux infestations”). Robert Mullins, who runs the Microsoft-boosting IDG blog*, is pushing that same old party line. It’s not much of a blog by the way; it’s akin to Ina Fried’s pseudo-journalism, which is like this new 24/7 (well, daily at least) Microsoft PR. These so-called ‘journalists’ are to Microsoft what O’Reilly/Beck/Fox are to the Republican party.
“These so-called ‘journalists’ are to Microsoft what O’Reilly/Beck/Fox are to the Republican party.”Anyway, Mullins is promoting that fake “Microsoft for the poor” pitch while Microsoft is targeting areas where GNU/Linux and Free software do relatively well. Microsoft is using some dumping tactics as usual, but it relies a great deal on shameless spin.
Yes, the latest news is that Microsoft fakes an “investment” (where it usually means software that costs nothing to make copies of) in South Africa’s black community [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. For those who are not aware, Microsoft has been sabotaging this nation’s migration to digital independence and this is not for the first time, either. They did this in South African schools for example.
The South African population is being victimised by yet another foreign invader (after it kicked out one major imperialist that we all know), but this time it’s a corporation. Microsoft uses similar tactics in the United States (a programme that we call “American EDGI”). This week we found an update about what Microsoft does in Massachusetts, pretending to help the disadvantaged while in fact just indoctrinating these people.
NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — A new state partnership with Microsoft will provide 26,000 vouchers for on-line technology training and testing accessed through 37 One Stop Career Centers including New Bedford and Wareham. The Elevate America program provides vouchers for free courses in Microsoft software programs to all Massachusetts residents except state employees and public workforce system employees.
There is also this new update about Salinas, which is affected by Schwarzenegger's sellout in California. Microsoft uses this state to acquire more customers whom both the state and Microsoft are brainwashing. █
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* In just a couple of months he has been defending Microsoft no matter the situation. He is also pushing and thus legitimising their predatory PR schemes.
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