02.25.11
1PlusV, Microsoft, and the Anti-Google AstroTurf
Summary: The latest action against Google comes from 1PlusV while AstroTurfing group ‘Consumer’ ‘Watchdog’ carries on with the anti-Google agenda, this time with the “somebody, think of the children!” tactics
GOOGLE deserves a lot of scrutiny, but much of the scrutiny is fake, or at least greatly exaggerated by Google’s rivals to whom Google is not significant threat as a search engine but as an operating systems and office suite competitor.
Over the years we have written dozens of posts that show Microsoft’s role in antitrust action against Google. Microsoft cannot compete fairly and it has a lot of influence through former partners and employees — those who enable Microsoft to cheat.
The MSBBC has some superficial coverage that can also be found elsewhere [1, 2, 3, 4]. The latter article adds information of interest: “Guillard also stated that Google’s actions meant that another site operated by 1plusV, Eguides.fr, had lost a contract with the French national library to help make its resources available online.
“”Because of the traffic collapse” the French library “understandably thought that Eguides.fr was no longer a suitable partner and signed an agreement with Microsoft,” 1plusV said.”
There is no evidence to suggest that antitrust in this particular case is tied to Microsoft, but based on a lot of references that we accumulated, Microsoft does — by all means — use other companies to create a stir and daemonise Google, then troubling Google’s business. Sometimes the attacking company receives its bribe from Microsoft well after the attack starts, suggests evidence from the SCO case, TurboHercules, and more. Mark Hachman from IDG mentioned Techrights in his new article which mentions the role of ‘Consumer’ ‘Watchdog’, an AstroTurfing group whose sole focus appears to be anti-Google agenda:
But Consumer Watchdog has also been accused of being unfairly critical of Google, especially after a mammoth video advertisement against Google appeared in Times Square. TechRights.org has gone so far to claim that the organization has been hired by Microsoft to attack a competitor.
The article is about ‘Consumer’ ‘Watchdog’ using sentimental blackmail (children) to daemonise Google. That’s the latest strategy and it is similar to their portrayal of Google’s CEO as some kind of paedophile selling ice cream.
These AstroTurfers are using government officials now, characteristically using parts of the system that are Microsoft’s last resort. And then there’s Murdoch’s Google witch-hunt [1, 2], which goes a long way back [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14]. █
twitter said,
February 25, 2011 at 7:05 pm
I disagree with this,
An honest search engine is a technical and marketing threat to Microsoft, which relies entirely on perception management and influence to push their software. Google plays a dual role with search, deflating billions of dollars worth of spin with honest answers and providing a welcome index of information. Google’s answers power gnu/linux and weaken Microsoft.
Google’s search results are the easiest way to answer any technical question. When the question is about Windows, Google’s correct answer reduces the monopoly on knowledge Microsoft would otherwise enjoy. When the question is about free software, Google’s answer helps organize otherwise divided free software users and that makes free software easier to use. gnu/linux would have been impractically difficult for me without search engines and Google is still the best.
Microsoft is not alone in their hatred of the research power Google gives ordinary citizens. The reason the US Chamber of Commerce is willing to spend millions of dollars on Cointel type projects to discredit progressive groups is because Google is shining a light on big dumb company practices as illuminated by our concerned neighbors. In the past, these activist could easily be dismissed as people with little influence who don’t know what they are talking about. Today, we can all do the same research and reach the same conclusions that used to take a long trip to a university level library. That makes it difficult to upsell a junk OS, open a new coal plant and otherwise rob people. Big publishers and big companies are constrained by a greater flow of accurate information, powered in part by companies like Google.
Dr. Roy Schestowitz Reply:
February 26th, 2011 at 12:20 am
Truthfully, I don’t think this is the threat Microsoft has in mind. There are other sites that help inform people (e.g. Wikipedia), which is why Microsoft’s PR agents distort that too.
twitter Reply:
February 28th, 2011 at 1:12 am
No, Google’s honest answers is what Microsoft and other big publishers hate. If it were not for Google, most people might not know what Wikipedia is and it might have slumbered as an academic exercise of little practical value. A frightful number of people still don’t know about it, the Internet Archive, the FSF, Project Gutenberg, Creative Commons and many other worth while things. Everyone knows what Google is because everyone knows that’s how you find out about things. It’s that kind of “mind control” that Microsoft and broadcasters thought they had and want back.
Take Microsoft’s ban on benchmarking, for example. I found this while searching for Microsoft mind control. The author ties the company’s blatant and illegal censorship intent to Bing, the pathetic, Google scraping “Decision Engine”. They frame it with an appropriate quote from Microsoft’s training manual, which I don’t have to cite because Google knows where it is,
Microsoft knows better than anyone that they live or die with their ability to exploit the development, IT communities and to a lesser extent, the world at large. Google and other uninterested search engines make that impossible and completely discredits billions of dollars worth of advertising, TE schmoozing, astroturfing and “research”. Anyone who knows that Microsoft has forbidden honest bench marking will never trust another study from Microsoft. This is one of many good reasons people quit considering Windows a a platform worth their time, money and effort.
An interested reader can follow up with a search for more about Microsoft Mind Control and will find more misconduct documented by a variety of sources. Not even Bing can hide damaging results, yet. The first Bing result is my 2008 journal about astroturfing in Slashdot, ha ha. Computers like Watson might be able to censor search results in the future but the task looks impossible right now especially if you are hobbled with Microsoft’s third rate tech.
Microsoft is not alone in their hatred of Google and the web in general. Many other large companies depend on deceiving the public for their survival. This is why they are spending so much money on astroturf. The broadcast model of manufactured consent is basically broken and fading fast, so they seek to drown out the rest of us on the web until they can otherwise tie it down.