OVER the years we covered some examples and documented scenarios wherein employment was at risk because of criticism of Microsoft. The last example we gave was as recent as 9 days ago although the story was told 9 years late. The modus operandi is familiar; the employer receives threats from Microsoft and in turn threatens staff critical of Microsoft (or their spouses). Microsoft tried something similar on me. Here's another new example (albeit told too late): "in about 2000, I wrote an open letter to NZ's parliament about their ill-advised consumption of proprietary software... here's the letter (thanks to archive.org): https://web.archive.org/web/20101027202539/http://openz.org/open_letter.php and here's the list of 435 NZers who'd signed it at the time: https://web.archive.org/web/20101028012632/http://openz.org/co-signers.php?umsSession=81fbb5c109354d0d4e7adc47be1cd54b - one of them worked for local gov't and told me that Microsoft NZ had contacted his boss and informed them that they would lose their right to use the "all-of-gov't"... [...] Microsoft agreement... if he didn't get his name taken of the list (It's possible others similarly manipulated. but as I didn't know many of these co-signers personally, I didn't hear of any more). The guy I knew was livid - there were actually insinuations from his boss at the council that he'd lose his job if he didn't get his name scrubbed from the list... [...] but it's still on there... and he no longer works for gov't."

This is the corporate equivalent of doxing and it shows that Microsoft actively spies on critics with the intention of undermining them, destroying their lives. ⬆