Bonum Certa Men Certa

Microsoft Still Rigging and Gaming Statistics by Taking Over or Registering Dead/Inactive/Parked Domains by the Millions

"It's part of a continuing behavior pattern by Microsoft that I think it's fair to call "dirty fighting." GoDaddy was using Apache (I assume on Linux) because it was a great technical solution. They didn't switch to IIS on Windows Server 2003 for any technical reason. The switch was accompanied by a press release by GoDaddy, containing Microsoft promotional language. Now, I've changed many servers from one thing to another, but I've never made a press release about it. GoDaddy wouldn't be doing that unless Microsoft had offered them something valuable in return. There has been talk in the domain business that Microsoft has been offering the large domain registries a wad of cash to switch their parked sites. There is no other reason to do this than to influence the Netcraft figures."

--Bruce Perens



Summary: Microsoft continues to game Netcraft's figures and graphs by amassing effectively dead domains, making itself (and IIS/Windows) look a lot bigger when it fact Microsoft only perishes on the Web, having long ago lost the game to GNU/Linux with Free/libre software on top of it (notably a L.A.M.P. stack)

Microsoft, being an opponent of facts and fair competition, continues to distort information on Netcraft, having done so for years [1, 2, 3, 4]. The principal dirty trick usually relies on back room deals with hosts/hosters and registrars, based on some speculations that make a lot of sense (see the above for instance). Literally millions of these newly-registered parked domains can be hosted by just a few desktops in one of Microsoft's offices. A lot of these domains are scarcely known, so they won't get a single hit in a whole day. A single desktop alone can manage a whole lot of them. Not even a dedicated server with a lot of RAM should be necessary. In fact, it is so cheap to do so -- along with the registration costs (done wholesale) -- that Microsoft can afford the equivalent of slush funds to basically register or to subsidise registration of many of these domains (e.g. at Microsoft's so-called 'cloud' or services, e.g. Outlook) and once it successfully does this it can mislead journalists (to receive positive coverage) and then bamboozle some of the less technical managers in various companies so that they choose based on the false impression that Windows is dominant. Microsoft is eventually causing them to host on a Microsoft platform/stack, based on false information. What a marketing swindle.



"Microsoft is eventually causing them to host on a Microsoft platform/stack, based on false information."There are many more examples (including Netcraft) in our Wiki. Microsoft just loves to rig statistics and it does a lot of this nowadays with Vista 10, as we pointed out earlier this month.

To Netcraft's credit, it seems to be actively -- pun intended -- trying to make it harder for rich actors (like Microsoft) that famously game their system, as Linspire once did to DistroWatch. "Microsoft made by far the largest gain in hostnames this month," it wrote, "with an additional 33.6 million sites bringing its total up to 265 million. Combined with a 15.9 million loss in Apache-powered sites, the difference between Microsoft's and Apache's market shares has now halved: Microsoft's share went up by 3.22 percentage points to 29.68%, while Apache's fell by 2.55 to 34.96%, reducing Apache's lead to just over five percentage points."

But the number of hostnames is misleading and for just a few millions of dollars one can acquire millions of hostnames. When it comes to actual hosting, the story is very different. Netcraft wrote: "Amongst the world's top million websites, nginx has continued to increase its market share and now powers more than twice as many sites as Microsoft." Powering a site and just sitting there behind a domain is a different story altogether. Watch what happens (in the charts) when it comes to active domains.

"Notice developer active sites vs "all" sites," wrote iophk to us, and "also notice that the metrics have changed." Microsoft will need to change the method by which it cheats this system. Time for a Microsoft alliance with Volkswagen?

Recent Techrights' Posts

Over 3 Months Later Brett Wilson LLP Still Unable to Recruit a Media Lawyer?
"Immediate start", but not found... still unfilled
Microsoft is Trying to "Pull a Nokia" on GNU/Linux as Desktop/Laptop Platform
We all remember that rather well, don't we?
Our Three Lawsuits Against Microsofters Are About to Become a Lot More Relevant to GNU/Linux
The Master will easily understand why Garrett has been attacking me since 2012
Slop Is Not Intelligence and It Does Not Enhance Productivity
Like voice dictation, which cannot tell the difference between "sheet" and "shit"
 
Reda Demanded That FSF Removes Its Founder, Now Reda Works Directly for Microsoft
A sellout and a traitor, first working for GAFAM, now Microsoft
PCLinuxOS is Raising Money to Support Development After Fire Incident at the Host
PCLinuxOS has not had announcements lately
Speed of the Site Should be Better Now
The "bot attacks" impact the speed of the sister site too
Getting More From AnalogNowhere
Recently we used many images from AnalogNowhere
Microsoft, Microsofters and 'Secure' Boot Shills Already Storming the LWN Report About Expiring Certificate, Shooting the Messenger
LWN has clearly stuck a nerve
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, July 23, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, July 23, 2025
Disable "Secure" Boot Today (the Only Better Time to Do So Was Yesterday)
Don't trust anything Red Hat tells you about security
Links 23/07/2025: Windows Killed Company After 150+ Years, US Government Mimics Russia's Attacks on the Media
Links for the day
Freedom Generally Wins at the End, History Shows (But It's Constantly Attacked, Too)
At the moment people realise "Linux" (e.g. Android) isn't enough to guarantee any freedoms
“Inhumane” and “Disgusting” Mass Layoff Execution, According to Microsoft Staff
The workers are looking for other places to work
Misinformation is Not Intelligence
It's low-grade plagiarism and it fails to show any signs of intelligence
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) Has a New Slogan for Its 40th Anniversary
The freedoms are what's most important
LLM Slopfarms gbhackers.com, "Cyber Press" and CyberSecurityNews Are Drowning Google News (and Shame on Google for Feeding and Facilitating Them)
All are run by the same people
Links 23/07/2025: Droplets GUI Patent Monopoly Challenge, Nokia Leverages Illegal Patent Court Against Rivals
Links for the day
Gemini Links 23/07/2025: Community in Geminispace and Challenges With Old Computers
Links for the day
Links 23/07/2025: Slop Patents Tackled, Slop Copyright Misuses Tackled by Politicians
Links for the day
Links 23/07/2025: Retreating From Transparency on Jeffrey Epstein, We No Longer Have Press Freedom
Links for the day
Gemini Links 23/07/2025: Piano and Food
Links for the day
New and Old
On Ageism in Tech
EPO Crimes Are Spreading to the British Court System
Society is now paying the price for failing to tackle crimes at the EPO
It's Time to Dump SharePoint and Here's What to Use Instead
Nextcloud, ownCloud, Bookstack, MediaWiki, and MediaGoblin
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, July 22, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, July 22, 2025
Brett Wilson LLP Has Gone Silent
Sometimes silence says more than nothing at all
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, Planet Ubuntu, and LinuxTechLab
some slopfarms show no remorse and they don't value their reputation at all
Links 23/07/2025: Book Bans, Storms, and Kangaroo Court for Patents Commits More Unlawful Acts of Overreach
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/07/2025: Thinkpad and Pinephone
Links for the day
Links 22/07/2025: "Blog Restart" and Microsoft Clobbered by “ToolShell"
Links for the day
Global Warming and Global GAFAM Energy-Wasting
Burn more money (borrowed, loans), then hope the waste will somehow translate into profit?
No Compliance With the European Patent Convention (EPC) at the European Patent Office (EPO)
It's about preventing competition against this autocracy
Blue-Collar Trolls vs White-Collar Trolls
Examples of white-collar trolls
Apple Vision Pro Failed So Badly That Its Sales Are About 2,000 Times Smaller Than iPhone Sales
What's left for Apple to offer other than hype?
To Millions of People "Year of the Linux Desktop" Was Some Time in the 1990s (Bootable GNU/Linux as a Complete Operating System is Over 33 in Age)
In some sense, "year of the Linux desktop" was 33 years ago
Make No Assumptions (or Demands) About the Screen Resolution Used by Other People
There are usability aspects, aside from accessibility aspects
Why Wayland (and XWayland) Won't Solve the Key Problem It Proclaims to be Tackling (the Same Is True for Rust)
The problem isn't Wayland per se but the false promises and efforts to force everybody to move to it whilst insulting or demonising everyone who won't play along
They Don't Tell Us that 'Digitalisation' (Now Sold as "Hey Hi") Just Means Customers Become Unpaid Staff and Are Made Accountable
People are being conditioned to associate technology with something undesirable, at times even unbearable
Diplomatic Immunity Should Not Exist for Anybody
The EPO in its current form gradually 'normalises' the end of European democracy
Brett Wilson LLP Stopped Sending Me Papers When I Showed It had Sent Me Over 5 Kilograms of Legal Papers
A week ago we lodged our third lawsuit
Microsoft Mass Layoffs and Shutdowns Became the New Normal at Microsoft
Microsoft mass layoffs became a topic of everyday media coverage since May
Amazon Web Services (AWS) Has Layoffs and Microsoft Gaming/Entertainment Division Has an Uncertain Future
it's good to see all those horrible things crashing and burning
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, July 21, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, July 21, 2025
FSF "Raised Almost $139,000 During This Summer Campaign"
"Thank you for making a stand against dystopia!"
Gemini Links 22/07/2025: VPS Exploited and Fear of View
Links for the day