Bonum Certa Men Certa

Increasing Microsoft Embedment at Facebook and Yahoo!

Scoble and Zuckerberg
Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg
with a former Microsoft evangelist who more recently joined Rackspace only to see it aligning with Microsoft a year and half later (source: Robert Scoble)



Summary: Facebook is giving Microsoft even more power and more user information for search profiling; Yahoo is meanwhile dying in Microsoft's arms, perhaps serving as a cautionary tale to Facebook

Facebook receives a lot of bad publicity not just owing to its size. The company's founder called Facebook users "dumb fucks" (a phrase used regarding trust and privacy) and not surprisingly he has personal relationships with Microsoft executives, both past and present. Even Microsoft's patent troll Nathan Myhrvold is someone whom he knows personally and met.



“A company is practically or just virtually 'brought' when its agenda is changed to align with Microsoft's.”In our previous posts that are focused on Facebook we showed an increase in technical collaborations between Microsoft and Facebook (they get slapped for swapping personal data of users). Microsoft once tried to buy Facebook, but it's so much easier and cheaper to just command the company from the outside, just like in Yahoo's case. A company is practically or just virtually 'brought' when its agenda is changed to align with Microsoft's.

Earlier this month it was revealed that "Bing could get access to anonymized Facebook data" or that "Your Facebook 'likes' might influence your Bing search results". It turns out that "Microsoft and Facebook [are] in Talks to Add 'Like' Utility to Bing" or to put it differently, "Bing [is] in talks to fine-tune search with Facebook 'Like' data". In more general terms, "Facebook, Microsoft in talks to deepen search ties" (shades of Yahoo!) and there is more information here. Facebook has been sharing data with Microsoft for quite some time.

The latest joining between Facebook and Microsoft was perhaps revealed here, if the "Exclusive" prefix is anything to go by.

Facebook and Microsoft are discussing an agreement that would significantly expand the search relationship the pair have shared for many years, said several people with knowledge of the situation.


Microsoft booster Emil Protalinski reveals more points of intersection between this pair of companies. Speaking of intersections between companies, "Microsoft's Blair Westlake to join I-Academy" says this new article which shows just how much further Microsoft is reaching: "Blair Westlake, corporate vp of Microsoft's Media and Entertainment Group, has been tapped as treasurer of the International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences."

Then there is the Nokia HR problem which we mentioned in the previous post. A few days ago we found the article titled "What We Can Learn from the Flight of Microsoft Execs to Amazon, AOL, GM, Nokia, Yahoo…and Micro VC":

Sometimes all you need to do is look at where former Microsoft executives are going, to piece together some interesting trends in the tech industry.

In recent months, a number of high-profile leaders from very different divisions of the Redmond, WA-based software firm (NASDAQ: MSFT) have departed. This might be true in any given year at a company with roughly 90,000 employees, of course, but what’s interesting here is where these execs are going—and what their moves say about their respective industries. (Also noticeably absent are any publicized moves to hated competitors like Apple, Google, or Oracle.)

I posit that the following six personnel moves say more about the near-term future of industries like mobile, gaming, online services, and automotive than about Microsoft itself, although there might be some intriguing partnerships with Redmond in the works:


Nokia, Amazon, and Yahoo are all mentioned there. We gave examples of Microsoft executives entering these big companies and concerns are justified based on consequences we saw. Yahoo! is still just busy serving Microsoft's search [1, 2] rather than advancing PHP and BSD with its own operations. Its once-leading E-mail service gets a belated revamp after Zimbra was passed to the Microsoft employees who run VM_Bware [sic].

“In northern America, Yahoo! routes traffic to Microsoft, so gullible journalists resort to pretending that the US is the whole world...”Nielsen, which Microsoft is apparently paying, remarks/plots/writes about the Yahoo!-Microsoft search outcome while Yahoo! still holds on to Alibaba [1, 2] (noteworthy is their recent Google deal in Japan).

In northern America, Yahoo! routes traffic to Microsoft, so gullible journalists resort to pretending that the US is the whole world and therefore "Microsoft's Bing Overtakes Yahoo As Number Two Search Engine" [1, 2, 3, 4]. Nielsen is used, but Microsoft swaps data with Nielsen, which leaves room for bias. The Microsoft-paid comScore [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10] says the same thing [1, 2], but it also measures market only in the US while saying the opposite of everyone else sometimes (while it only claims to be checking one country, the American press often fails to mention this).

MSNBC carries content from another Microsoft booster (original in Fool.com). It's just propaganda along with self-selected numbers (that same old "US-only trick") regarding search. The Microsoft press is trying to get across the idea that Microsoft is somehow winning in search. How utterly shameful. There is more of that boosting from the same source and Enderle is still given a platform by ECT, despite his conflict of interest. That's just a good example of how bad the press can be.

Here is what the 'Microsoft press' in Redmond says:

So, that Microsoft-Yahoo search deal? It's kind of working a little bit! With Bing now running Yahoo, Microsoft's consumer-search market-share numbers now seem, at least, to be marginally less pathetic than they used to be. Keep on foisting that sword at those windmills, Don Microxofte.


They refer to US-only (or north America) deal as though it's global. That's rather dishonest, yet expected from such a biased source.

The truth of the matter is that Google keeps gaining (Google gains are currently covered in [1, 2, 3]) and Yahoo! suffers because Microsoft is ruining the company. It is infiltrating those important positions in the company (CTO for example) and halting useful development, not to mention funding of Free software projects. In companies like Yahoo! and VM_Bware there used to be potential for advancing Free software, but that's hardly the case anymore. Microsoft made Yahoo! lose its identity and become just a channel for Microsoft's biased 'search'. One journalist asks, "Why Is It So Hard For Yahoo To Explain What It Is?" There is this new article in the MSBBC ("Yahoo bids to get its 'cool' back and remain relevant"), which led richslxh from Identi.ca to writing: "Google at least helps !foss Yahoo doesn't, now they are whining. #Yahoo-is-tech #my #arse... Google introduced instant search, Twitter revamped its website. Yahoo in comparison talked about "cool things coming up soon". #yahoo #fail"

“What Microsoft did here only increased unemployment in Silicon Valley.”It's not entirely Yahoo's fault. Microsoft hijacked the company (ousted the old/original management), took the valuable parts, and ejected the rest. And some people still say that Microsoft is beneficial to technology? What Microsoft did here only increased unemployment in Silicon Valley. Some people from Yahoo! were left without a job (they previous worked around Free software) and some moved to Microsoft. Google has had a similar problem for a while -- the problem is absorbing former Microsoft staff like Daniel Costello in this new case or Don Dodge last year [1, 2, 3, 4].

Who is left to run Yahoo! then? One might say that the company will inevitably become unethical/criminal like Microsoft, maybe even based on this new and exclusive report from The Register: [via]

According to Yahoo!'s chief economist, Preston McAfee, the company is "handicapping" its auctions using an algorithmic method it calls squashing. And it had been doing so since 2007.

"When someone has a really high ad click probability, they're very hard to beat, so it's not a really competitive auction," McAfee told The Reg. "So that they don't just win [every auction], we do squashing. This makes the auction more competitive.

"It's like handicapping. We handicap the people with the high click probability."

This, McAfee said, can increase Yahoo!'s revenues. "The bidders respond by bidding higher. The one who was destined to lose is now back in the race, so they bid higher trying to displace the number one, and the number one is trying to fend them off so they bid higher too.

"We can make the competition a bit more fierce using squashing, even on keywords where there's not much bidding."


This is potentially illegal.

Here is an article which preceded it (also from The Register):

Yahoo! economist rebuilds ad empire with 'Magic Formula'



[...]

McAfee is a disciple of Nobel Prize–winning economist Roger Myerson, whose "mechanism design theory" has been used to build everything from efficient trading systems to reliable voting procedures. "In the same way a physicist develops a theory and an engineer builds something that actually uses that theory, we're the kind of people who use scientific principles to actually make markets or interactions among people work better, work more smoothly," McAfee says.


Ultimately, it seems possible that Facebook's trajectory is similar to Yahoo's. It is gradually being assimilated.

Recent Techrights' Posts

"Use Wayland" Isn't a Bugfix for X (X11 is Still Necessary)
They tell us X is "dead" and we must all be herded into Wayland ASAP
The New Head of OSI is an "Hey Hi" (AI) Obsessed Person
when Bryant says "AI" that doesn't mean AI
"Governments, local authorities, schools and hospitals can lead by example by procuring only Free Software"
Crossposted from Tux Machines
Cindy Cohn Leaving the Electronic Frontier Foundation While Its Co-founder John Gilmore, Whom She Apparently Helped Oust, Will Celebrate 40 Years of the Free Software Foundation, Inc.
EFF has been busy hoarding GAFAM money, whereas the latter is where all the real activism is done
"Google is Googlebombing KDE's Project Banana"
So is Google googlebombing KDE's Project Banana? You decide.
Some Very Large IRC Networks Are Growing
IRC will turn 38 next year
 
Slopwatch: Google News is Slop, Google News is Plagiarism, Google News is Dying
Google is off the rails
Links 16/09/2025: "The Censorship Alarm Is Ringing in the Wrong Direction" and ASRock Does Microsoft E.E.E. on GNU/Linux
Links for the day
Serious "Breach of Confidentiality of Personal Data" in Europe's Second-Largest Institution, the EPO
Yes, the same EPO that routinely uses "data protection" and "GDPR" as a pretext for hiding or covering up its corruption and white-collar crimes (it even uses that as an excuse for refusing to obey courts' orders)
Adrienne Rockenhaus Says Her Husband Was Arrested for Running Tor and Denied Basic Rights in the United States
the US seems to be getting "russified" in its approach towards Tor
This is What Happens When Microsoft Canonical Lets Decisions on Ubuntu be Made by a Youngster From the British Army (Where He Did Mass Surveillance)
"Is Ubuntu Compromised?"
Back Doored Windows Giving GNU/Linux a Hard Time (Under the Guise of 'Security')
Is this complication intentional? Most likely, yes
Links 16/09/2025: Science, Security, and Conflicts
Links for the day
Gemini Links 16/09/2025: Command-line Options in POSIX Shell and Introducing Acre 0.9
Links for the day
Microsoft 'Secure' Boot Versus Dual Boot With GNU/Linux
they're meant to assume everything is OK
Links 16/09/2025: While Oracle Pretends to be Rich It's Firing About 70 MySQL Workers, "Oracle's Revenge" (Faking Demand With "AI")
Links for the day
Microsoft Has Just Published a New Web Page About "Secure Boot Update Process" (Microsoft Also Admits Issues; PCs Can Stop Booting)
Why was this page issued and published only hours ago?
Microsoft Lunduke: I Spread Hate and Then I Receive Hate
Cry us a river, Microsoft Lunduke
"Disable Secure Boot and Fast Boot. Wipe and Start Over."
At least they didn't say, buy a new computer...
The Oracle Ponzi Scheme
Oracle isn't doing well, but it's nowadays fashionable to say "clown" and "hey hi" to prop up one's stock, even based on nothing at all
Taking Out the Battery, Opening Up Your Computer, Just Like a "Normie" Would
At this stage, any person who still says "enable Secure Boot" is misguided or persuaded by companies that sell rootkits
Slopwatch: Serial Sloppers and Slopfarms Still Infesting Google News (Fake 'Articles' About "Linux" Spreading FUD)
searching for "Linux" today yields a lot of FUD
The Reach of Techrights Has Broadened
We nowadays cover a broader range of issues
Complicating Things for No Actual Benefit, Just Added Risk and More Difficulties Adding GNU/Linux and BSDs
Watch what it's like for people who wish to use BSDs
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, September 15, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, September 15, 2025
Links 16/09/2025: Autumn Party, RPG Planet, and Optical ROOPHLOCH
Links for the day
Geminispace Growing at Pace of Over 10% Per Year
Contrary to what some pessimists try to claim
Linux Mint Forums Today: Disable 'Secure Boot', It Doesn't Improve Security, It's Just a Microsoft Obstacle to GNU/Linux Users
They also mention MOK
What Ruben Amorim and Stefano Maffulli Have in Common
Censors Wikipedia and Social Control Media
Microsoft Won't Cooperate in Trying to Tackle EPO Corruption (Microsoft Profits From This Corruption)
Use something like BigBlueButton, Jami, Ring, and Jitsi instead
Solved Less Than an Hour Ago: Trying to Escape Windows, 'Secure Boot' Gets in the Way
'Secure Boot' wasn't meant to even exist in the first place
Stefano Maffulli, Executive Director of the Open Source Initiative, Resigns or Gets Removed (We'll Continue Covering OSI Scandals)
A dozen mentions of "AI", not much about "Open Source"
Andy Has Just Nailed It (Regarding Complexity and Failure, a la UEFI)
The users no longer own or control what they buy
Compatibility Support Module (CSM) Versus GNU/Linux Simplicity
what Andy recently called "solutionism"
Links 15/09/2025: "Postal Traffic to US Down by Over 80%" and 'Smart' Spinozacampus Laundry Room Goes AWOL
Links for the day
Gemini Links 15/09/2025: Dungeon Hustle and Deleting Oneself From the Net
Links for the day
Breach of EPO's Duty of Care or Cigna Reimbursement Issues
This is the sort of thing that motivated Luigi Mangione to assassinate a CEO
Ask Ubuntu About "Secure Boot" Violation and Laptops That Don't Boot GNU/Linux
Does anyone still believe that "Secure Boot" has anything at all to do with security?
We Are Sad to Hear the Story of Jonathan Riddell, Champion of KDE and GNU/Linux on Desktops/Laptops
I have enormous respect for Jonathan and everything he has done
Talking About the Problem vs Talking to the Problem
Wanting an audience is never a good excuse for compromising one's values and principles
Focusing on Patents
The reason we cover the EPO so much is that it's close to home
"Secure Boot Violation": The 'Joys' of Fake Security Gone Wrong
Not everyone reboots every day
Links 15/09/2025: Russia Invades Romanian Airspace, Penske Media Sues Google Over LLM Slop
Links for the day
Links 15/09/2025: Bitcoin ATMs Scam and "Conservative Cryptography" (Backdoors Fantasies)
Links for the day
EPO Imitates Microsoft: "Three Days or More Per Week" Inside the Office to Get a Desk to Work on; "the Office Breaches Its Promise Towards Staff and Acts in Breach of Its Duty of Care"
The EPO serves no actual function in Europe
Links 15/09/2025: Political Affairs, Censorship, and Copyrights
Links for the day
Gemini Links 15/09/2025: Music Genres, Invisible Networks, and Akademy 2025
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, September 14, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, September 14, 2025
Satya's Plan B: Try to Hide the Massive Extent/Scale/Scope of Microsoft Layoffs
fewer people buy Microsoft
Red Hat News About De Facto Mass Layoffs (Bluewashing) Gone From Reddit (Censored by Gatekeepers), Still Online in The Register
With RTOs, PIPs, relocation etc. expect IBM to "shed off" many Red Hatters
UEFI "Secure Boot Doesn’t Play Nice at the Moment"
UEFI "Secure Boot" does not improve security. It's an artificial obstacle in service of monopoly.
Gemini Links 14/09/2025: ROOPHLOCH, Music, and Reddit
Links for the day
If You Want to "make your 'Windows PC' lean, mean, and fast" You Will Install GNU/Linux or Some BSD
That kind of article says a lot about IDG
Slopwatch: Google News Infested With Slop (About Half of the Results for "Linux" Today)
This is the sort of junk one finds when looking for "Linux" in Google News these days
Links 14/09/2025: Ricky Hatton Dies and McDonald's Declares War on Tipping Culture
Links for the day
Links 14/09/2025: Disasters for CEOs Obsessed With Slop and Slop Companies School Like Fish
Links for the day
"Bad Shim Signature" (Microsoft 'Secure' Boot)
"Fresh install not booting"
What Microsoft Garrett and Microsoft Lunduke Have in Common
Similar tactics, different "wings"
Links 14/09/2025: US "Economy Sagging", "Michigan Economy Wobbles From Tariffs"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 14/09/2025: Minimalist Snippet Manager and Omarchy Linux
Links for the day
The Face of the Digital Far Right: Microsoft Lunduke
Microsoft Lunduke is an online extremist that belongs to and panders to the far right
20 Years Later and Academia Isn't the Same
"I never dreamed of being a professor"
'Cancel Culture' by the Right: Microsoft Lunduke Contacts People's Employers Trying to Get Them Fired
Microsoft Lunduke panders to extremists online
"Bad Shim Signature"; So 'Secure' That It Overrides Users' Preferences and Turns Itself Back on (Coercive Measure)
This was a few hours ago
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, September 13, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, September 13, 2025