08.08.11
Gemini version available ♊︎Microsoft Caught Paying Burson-Marsteller to Smear Google
Summary: AstroTurfing is alive and well at Microsoft, reveal reports from Germany
IT IS UNDENIABLE that Facebook engaged in AstroTurfing using a firm that we mentioned here before, Burson-Marsteller [1, 2]. We also wrote about this AstroTurfing firm in prior years. “Burson-Marsteller in Germany anti-Google smear campaign sponsored by Microsoft,” alerted us a reader some minutes ago, citing the following new reports (in German):
● Gastbeitrag: Der Mensch denkt, Google lenkt
● Mangelnde Transparenz: Der Lobbyismus der Internetgiganten
● Anti-Google-PR in der Frankfurter Rundschau
AstroTurfing and cartels are Microsoft’s means of competing. Where on Earth are the antitrust regulators? They should not be going after Google, they should chase down the fiend who manipulates regulators and engages in extreme anticompetitive tactics that possibly constitute a violation of the law in several countries. █