Bonum Certa Men Certa

Microsoft's Patent Lobby and Scott Cleland as Anti-Google Weapon

Microwave antenna



Summary: Association for Competitive Technology (ACT) exposed for more Microsoft lobbying this week; Scott Cleland's latest attacks on Google neglect to mention his financial relationship with Microsoft

LARGE AND UNUSUALLY ABUSIVE companies love hiding behind front groups that pretend to represent the very opposite side and receive millions of dollars to do this job as fake "activists" (actually reverse "lobbyists" who should just be labeled criminals and laws be passed to jail them). At PR Watch we have a new example today:





PR Watch has another new example where companies rename to avoid/escape a connotation:



The interesting thing is, lobbyists too occasionally change names. A case of nymshifting was once exposed when ATL (infamous for letters from dead people in support of Microsoft) more or less became Association for Competitive Technology (ACT fakes representation of small businesses), which is just another Microsoft front group which massively attended and took over the discussion at IGF [1, 2]. The FFII was viewing this event and it gave the following quotes from ACT's Zuck. The first is "incenting [sic] the people who are going to create the new technologies." The second is "Open standards are very important, but they are not a panacea." This is lobbying for software patents.

The head of the FSFE wrote (via Jan Wildeboer): "Poked Microsoft's in #IGF Open Standards session enough to get clear statement from him: "Open Standards = RAND & FRAND, not RF" [RAND & FRAND are incompatible with Free software]"

Lo and behold -- US senators call for action on a patent bill. Watch the propaganda in favour of "[s]trengthening our patent system":

A bipartisan group of 25 senators urged Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., Wednesday to bring legislation that would overhaul the U.S. patent system to the Senate floor for a vote.

With the legislation stalled for months, the senators led by Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, R-Vt., and ranking member Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., called on Reid in a letter to bring a compromise version of a patent overhaul bill the Judiciary Committee passed last year to the floor "as soon as possible." They note that the compromise measure, which would be offered as a manager's amendment on the Senate floor, enjoys broad support and would help spur economic activity.

"Strengthening our patent system and spurring innovation and investment is an action we should take now to stimulate our economy," the senators wrote. They added that, "Patent reform is bipartisan legislation, supported by the [Obama] administration, that will improve the economy and create jobs without adding to the deficit."


As we showed the other night, the Obama administration is in favour of the patent lobby. No surprise there.

ThistleWeb addresses an important FUD pattern about the role of nationality. There are US-based companies opposing software patents (e.g. Red Hat) but especially foreign ones. Here is an interesting perspective:

I've noticed a talking point among some Microsoft astroturfers, who seek to use it as an argument for staying with Microsoft and not using Linux / FOSS software; you should reject "foreign" when "good US companies" like Microsoft are at the forefront of everything. In other words, "vote patriot". At first I thought this was a bed idea for Linux / FOSS but now I'm not so sure.

If we see this as an example to follow, then those US companies will find themselves minority players in no time. The US after all is only around 6% of the global population. Right now companies like Microsoft and other US companies strangle smaller companies from other countries. If others "vote patriotism", it means they reject US companies in favour of their own. In cases where there are no national corps that fit the bill, there is the global FOSS option.

* Microsoft = US * Apple = US * Novell = US * RedHat = US

[...]

I'm not sure the pro-Microsoft astroturfers playing the patriotism card was all that well thought out. If applied globally it would ruin Microsoft. Imagine every government outside of the US dumping Windows and Office. Imagine every non-US company, school, hospital etc following suit. As I pointed out earlier, you could be a good US "patriot" and switch to RedHat Linux, which still cuts Microsoft out of the loop.


Among the four companies above, all have software patents, but only Red Hat seems to be working to get rid of them. Apple is no better than Microsoft when it comes to software patents, but its lobby is a lot smaller, just like the company itself. Some of its products become cultural items, so the following news, which has nothing at all to do with hypePhone in particular, seems to associate it with lawmaking or rulings:

iPhone using juror causes manslaughter conviction to be overturned



[...]

Defendant was accused of killing his new neighbor and was indicted for murder. The jury convicted him of the lesser charge of manslaughter.


Contrary to the headline, it has nothing to do with Apple's gadgets. It's to do with access to texts. It's about being better informed.

“Cleland is not a mere campaigner, it's just another lobbyist”As one final item, Wayne brought to our attention the curious case of Scott Cleland, whom we wrote about before. He is linked to Microsoft and allegedly also to Bell, so his output was mentioned here before in relation to Microsoft's net neutrality policy. His writings about Microsoft are biased and telecoms seem to be his top priority. He is routinely accused of being a "Telco Shill" (on the payroll), yet IDG writers offer him a platform. Having seen hundreds of articles from him, it is safe to allege that IDG's Tony Bradley takes Microsoft's side a lot of the time (yet we don't name him much).

Now that a fake 'consumer' group (AstroTurfer) uses regulators to harass Google [1, 2, 3, 4], Scott Cleland joins the party and claims that Google is destroying the economy (reducing employment). Our insightful reader Wayne shared with us this good rebuttal which starts thusly:

Ron Rezendes was the first of a whole bunch of you to send over PC World's coverage of Scott Cleland's latest attack on Google, though, bizarrely, Tony Bradley at PC World, fails to (a) fill in the details on Cleland's history and current job or (b) challenge any of the many false assumptions Cleland makes. He does question the overall conclusions, noting (accurately) that the tech world is littered with "monopolies" that were killed off by upstarts, but there's a lot more worth questioning in Cleland's piece. Cleland, as we've discussed in the past, is known throughout DC policy circles as the official attack dog of every anti-Google company out there. He's literally paid to make up attacks on Google, no matter how ridiculous.


The thing about Scott Cleland is, by merely googling his name (maybe that too is why he hates Google) one can find a lot. The National Journal reported that Cleland "signed on as a hired gun for Microsoft earlier this year." Follow the money. Cleland is not a mere campaigner, it's just another lobbyist.

Recent Techrights' Posts

[Meme] 9AM Meeting at Brett Wilson LLP
Brett Wilson LLP in space
 
Links 19/07/2025: Kapo-berg Settles, Software Patents Challenged
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, July 18, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, July 18, 2025
Links 18/07/2025: Peace With PKK and Connie Francis Dies
Links for the day
Gemini Links 18/07/2025: Alhena 5.1.8 and Bornhack 2025
Links for the day
How to Top Up a "Limited Liability" With Even More Limitations (Dodging Accountability in the UK)
Some people call it a "shell game". Sometimes it's done for tax evasion purposes.
Free Software Foundation, Inc. (FSF) Inches Towards 75% of Fund-Raising Target
Will the cutoff date be extended again?
Gemini Space (or Geminispace) Grows, But Usage of Certificate Authority Let's Encrypt Drops Further
Ideally, all Gemini capsules should use self-signed certificates
Links 18/07/2025: More Microsoft Layoffs in Activision, The New Stack (Sponsored by Microsoft) Complains About Openwashing
Links for the day
Gemini Links 18/07/2025: OCC25 Gnus for Reading Usenet and RSS Feeds, Small Web Updates
Links for the day
Listing as Staff People Who Left the Company More Than Six Years Earlier
There are apparently no laws against that
Brian Fagioli Shovels Up LLM Slop (Plagiarism) Onto Slashdot, Then Uses Slashdot for Affirmation or as Badge of Honour
Notice how some of his latest slop is presented ("as featured on Slashdot")
Social Control Media Productivity
Snapping photos of the bone
The Law Firm SLAPPing Us For the Microsofters Lost 72% of Its Tangible Assets in the Past Year, According to Its Own Reports
That might help explain why they're willing to tolerate serial stranglers from Microsoft as clients
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity.com Slopfarm and Slopfarms Propped Up by Google News
"As LLM slop is foisted onto the WWW in place of knowledge and real content, it now gets ingested and processed by other LLMs, creating a sort of ouroboros of crap."
Links 18/07/2025: Weather Events and Health Hazards
Links for the day
Microsoft's All-Time Low in Finland
Microsoft is in a freefall
Security: Shane Wegner & Debian statement of incompetence
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, July 17, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, July 17, 2025
Gemini Links 17/07/2025: "Goodreads for Gemini" and Defence of "The Small Web"
Links for the day
Links 17/07/2025: Anger and Morale Issues at Microsoft, Wars and Conflicts Get Digital
Links for the day
CALEA / CALEA2 is the Real Problem, Not Chinese Operatives Exploiting CALEA / CALEA2 (as Any Other Nation Can)
CALEA / CALEA2 is more of a front door than a back door
99.99% Uptime in First Half of 2025
Since January there was only one noticeable outage
Nils Torvalds and Anna "Mikke" Torvalds (née Törnqvis) Hopefully Use GNU/Linux by Now
"Torvalds Family Uses Windows, Not Linus’ Linux"
Attack of the Slopfarms
FUD-amplifying bots with slop images, slop text (LLM slop)
When People Call a Best/Close Friend of Bill Gates a "Serial Rapist"
Good thing that the Linux Foundation keeps the "Linux" trademark ("Linux Mark") clean
Not My Problem, I Don't Care
Context/inspiration: Martin Niemöller
Honest Journalism About the European Patent Office Ceased to Exist After SLAPPs and Bribes to the Media
The EPO is basically a Mafia
Microsoft Bankruptcy in Russia, Shutdown in Pakistan, What Next?
It seems possible that in 2025 alone Microsoft will have laid off over 50,000 workers
Life Became Simpler When I Stopped Driving and I Don't Miss Driving When I See "Modern" Cars
Gee, wonder why car sales have plummeted...
Why I Believe Brett Wilson LLP and Its Microsoft Clients Are All Toast
So far our legal strategy has worked perfectly
EPO Jobs Are Very Toxic and Bad for One's Health
Health first, not monopolies
Response to Ryo Suwito Regarding the Four Freedoms
the point of life isn't to make more money
Microsoft's Morale Circling Down the Drain
Or gutter, toilet etc.
What Matters More Than "Market Share"
The goal is freedom, not "market share"
Tech Used to be Fun. To Many of Us It's Still Fun.
You can just watch it from afar and make fun of it all
Links 17/07/2025: "Blog Identity Crisis" and Openwashing by Nvidia
Links for the day
Greffiers and the US Attorney of the Serial Strangler From Microsoft
The lawsuit can help expose extensive corruption in the American court system as well
Credit Suisse collapse obfuscated Parreaux, Thiébaud & Partners scandal
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
The People Who Promoted systemd in Debian Also Promote Wayland
This is not politics
UK Media Under Threat: Cannot Report on Data Breach, Cannot Report on Microsoft Staff Strangling Women
The story of super injunction (in the British media this week, years late)
Victims of the Serial Strangler From Microsoft, Alex Balabhadra Graveley, Wanted to Sue Him But Lacked the Funds (He Attacked Their Finances)
Having spoken to victims of the Serial Strangler From Microsoft
Links 17/07/2025: Science, Hardware, and Censorship
Links for the day
Gemini Links 17/07/2025: Staying in the "Small Web" and Back on ICQ
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, July 16, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, July 16, 2025