11.29.11
Posted in Microsoft, Search at 3:50 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: DuckDuckGo and Yahoo! as search engines lead to Microsoft and provide watered down results for FOSS subjects
THERE is reason to be concerned about Microsoft turning Yahoo! Into a purple (ish) Microsoft front end.
There is a reason to be suspicious of DuckDuckGo as well. A closer look helps us understand that when Microsoft killed Yahoo! it basically eliminated another competitor — a malicious move which hurts the industry as a whole (destroying jobs, hurting customers, and so on). “DuckDuckGo needs to wash its hands of Bing,” wrote one of our readers earlier this evening. A recent article outlining how DuckDuckGo (DDG) gives Microsoft-generated (read: censored) results much of the time gave more room for discomfort and we are now seeing Microsoft play more anticompetitive games in search. Some months ago I was shown by a friend how his Windows/IE combination could not retain the choice of Google as a default search engine. He just couldn’t get it to work, so instead he was channelled into Microsoft and its front ends every time he started the Web browser. Design flaw? Surely not, it was clearly deliberate. According to another new testimonial, this is a widespread problem. To quote: “I recently had to install windows on a computer. This involved all the updates and bells and whistles. One of those is what some love to call internet exploder 
When starting up internet explorer for the first time it asks you to go through some hoops to set up some settings. If you were to just accept the default settings then you would be using all microsoft search engines. Naturally I did not want to use bling so I decided to choose a custom setting. I wanted Google to be my default search provider.
“I was a bit miffed that there was not a choice for Google right there. Instead I had to wait until all the settings were configured and microsoft opens up a page for me to choose the search provider I wanted. It would have been much easier if I could choose it right there. I could live with it though so I finished all the setting up of internet explorer and waited for it to open up the page so I could choose the Google search provider.
“Lo and behold the page opened up and right there in front of my eyes were a stack of icons of different search providers. The second one, with the Google colors and the Google ‘g’ and the name of Google.com seemed to me to be a good bet that this was the Google search provider I was wanting. I looked at all the other search providers and there was no other Google search provider listed. So it must be that one right? Wrong! Here is the page pointed to by the microsoft internet explorer setup program.”
Somebody ought to investigate this. Microsoft used tricks like these before and was forced off them. While the Microsoft boosters spin hard to pretend Microsoft honours competition, the company is just the same psychopath is has always been. Apathy towards Microsoft is a recipe for trouble, not peaceful coexistence. █
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09.20.11
Posted in Antitrust, Microsoft, Patents, Search at 1:31 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Extortion company escapes untouched
Summary: Microsoft racketeering comes to Casio and the regulators are catching up with Microsoft’s older abuses of the market, which rely on elimination of choice rather than outright extortion of the competitors that won (with Linux)
Microsoft is bleeding billions in areas that are not reported or under-reported (the company has billions in debt to repay). According to this timely new article, the ‘hidden’ part keeps getting uglier, with Bing now losing at the pace of $4,000,000,000 per year. Surely Microsoft will need to come up with a new business model and the mafia-like business model is what Microsoft chose when it signed a deal with Novell, which is why we cannot ignore Microsoft. It uses patent trolls to attack Linux (an antitrust violation) and builds anti-Linux legal instruments/cartels (which are an antitrust violation too).
According to this one Microsoft booster, the list of Linux companies Microsoft is extorting has just increased somewhat. “On September 20,” writes the booster, “Microsoft officials said that Microsoft and Casio Computer Co. Ltd., a subsidiary of Casio Worldwide, had entered into a “a broad, multiyear patent cross-licensing agreement that, among other things, will provide Casio’s customers with patent coverage for their use of Linux in certain Casio devices.””
It is possibly only FAT but Microsoft states that it is “Linux” just to scare people. That’s based on what we recently learned from OIN. This whole thing is secret because if details were known, it would be easier to nail Microsoft for antitrust violations (see the Barnes & Nobel case). According to another one of today’s ZDNet blog pieces (masquerading as news), “Spain begins antitrust investigation into Microsoft,” but as we learned from Cablegate, US politicians are likely to help Microsoft dodge this. To quote the nature of this investigation:
Spain’s competition commission said on Tuesday it has opened an anti-trust investigation into Microsoft’s Spanish and Irish subsidiaries, on grounds that the company “blocked the sale by third parties” of PC software licences.
Though details at this stage are sketchy, it is thought that the watchdog believes that collected information could indicate a possible violation of Spanish competition regulations.
The investigation and ruling “must be completed within 18 months“, the Wall Street Journal’s MarketWatch reports.
How about they start going after Microsoft for patent extortion? There are clearly laws relating to racketeering [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7] and it’s a more urgent matter. █
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09.08.11
Posted in Microsoft, Search at 2:21 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: The exodus of Microsoft managers picks up pace as more and more of them flee to other companies
In the previous post we saw the departure of Microsoft Corporate Vice President Linda Zecher. While researching her exit we also found out that, according to the ‘Microsoft press’, there are some other departures that escaped as much media attention although we managed to find appropriate links, the majority of which come from Microsoft boosters [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. According to Microsoft-friendly sources, one “left the company this week. Pell came to Microsoft in 2008 after Microsoft acquired search and natural-language company Powerset, where Pell was founder and CEO.” Microsoft also lost leaders of acquired companies such as TellMe. They don’t want to stay at Microsoft while the companies they built from scratch get ruined by Microsoft.
According to those same Microsoft-friendly sources, another important person is leaving, but they downplay the damage. “Mendlen isn’t completely severing his Microsoft ties,” they allege, “he has been appointed chief marketing officer of DevExpress, a Microsoft Visual Studio Industry Partner (VSIP). According to a statement from DevExpress, Mendlen will assume his new role on Sept. 10.” They say he did “evangelism”, which is Microsoft’s euphemistic term for AstroTurfing. Here are more articles about it [1, 2, 3].
We ought to stress that there are many more like them who left without us noticing because we no longer look at Microsoft closely. When we watched Microsoft closely, especially around 2009 and part of 2010, we compiled a list that shows the high pace of departure. Microsoft’s revolving doors are a carousel. Why are people escaping? How bad does it look from the inside? █
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07.19.11
Posted in Google, Microsoft, Search at 2:32 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Microsoft eliminates choice and controls its opposition
MICROSOFT LOVES to kill competition because it’s a lot easier than to actually create competing/compelling products. History has many examples like this and the Yahoo hijack is one of the more recent ones. In the case of Yahoo, Microsoft resorted to proxy fights and other questionable tactics which include AstroTurfing. Well, after a history of systematic crime Microsoft realises that it has a well-deserved reputation problem, so it hides behind brands of other companies and keeps re-badging its search, trying to somehow trick people into using Microsoft thinking that they are fighting “bad”, “evil” Google. As we experimented with some alternative search engines today (or meta-search) we came to discover the above in DuckDuckGo (from screenshot), taking the user to this FAQ page. Does DuckDuckGo really want to market itself as a substitute to Google by sporting Microsoft? Suffice to say, this is very disappointing.
“Do not let Microsoft pretend to be of both sides, both open source and proprietary, both Windows and Linux, both Microsoft and the “anti-Microsoft”.”In similar news of interest, amid a lot of Microsoft “open source” PR this week (e.g. trying to portray the company as open and as a contributor to a kernel it attacks with lawsuits, among other things) we discovered that Microsoft is top sponsor (i.e. passing money for placement) in an open source “Think Tank”, as before. The sponsorship is for Microsoft and friends to shape opinion and position of its competition. Do not let Microsoft pretend to be of both sides, both open source and proprietary, both Windows and Linux, both Microsoft and the “anti-Microsoft”. It’s a known technique for removing choice. Coca Cola uses similar tactics to ensure it gets paid even by those who hate Coke. █
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04.08.11
Posted in Microsoft, Search at 12:43 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Microsoft workers who speak out against their employer these days
We wish to thank Jan for bringing to our attention this important item which we missed last month. It’s titled “Birth and Death of Microsoft Bing” and it is written by a B0ng employee, starting as follows:
I worked at Bing back in 2008 and I’ve seen it at the peak of its power. This story is about an amazing group of technologists, where were on a task of solving the hardest problem in the world – Attacking Google at it’s home territory. Let me say that again: Attacking a market incumbent on an area of it’s core strength – It’s hardest in technology companies. Time and again people have tried doing it and failed, and it’s not just about the money.
A blogger who supports us, Penguin Pete, has also just declared that “Microsoft’s Monopoly Is Now So Bad That Even Microsoft Employees Complain”, citing Microsoft staff:
I’ve never seen anything like this story, and I don’t think there’s ever been a precedent in history. A story summarized at Electronista seems to show a Microsoft employee complaining that the company actually has smaller monopolies within itself destroying it from the inside. What can happen when a single corporation does the closest thing to enslaving the entire human race that any entity has ever done and goes unchecked, unchallenged, and uncontrollable for so long? Its empire fragments into a bunch of warring sub-monopolies, that’s what.
To make matters worse, only a minority of Microsoft employees approves Ballmer's reign, despite all the Kool-Aid. These are all signs of a rogue company. █
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02.27.11
Posted in Deception, FUD, Google, Microsoft, Search at 3:41 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Groklaw accuses Dr. Ben Edelman of being a front for Microsoft as Google carries on stealing Microsoft’s thunder
BEN Edelman — like Richard Edelman — is accused of engaging in Microsoft PR. The former, however, has nothing to do with Edelman the firm, which supports the most vocal anti-Google attack dog (called “Consumer Watchdog”). “I encourage you to go to Bing and search for “maps”. Bing maps is first, then Yahoo, then Google,” Groklaw writes regarding this new article. “The selective attacks on Google are just plain silly at best. Given Edelman’s resume, I think one must consider agendas, just as one would on reading the “independent” studies that say just what Microsoft desires. So I’d redo the headline to read: My Message to Microsoft: Spend More on Products and Less on FUD/PR.”
Groklaw refers to the new article which says:
In mid February, at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt expressed pride in Google employee Wael Ghonim’s brave struggle against the autocratic Mubarak regime to establish political transparency in Egypt. “We are very, very proud of what Wael and that group was able to do in Egypt,” Schmidt said in Barcelona. But what Schmidt needs to do now is apply Ghonim’s views about political transparency to Google’s own search business.
[...]
Last November, when the European Commission launched its investigation, the Harvard Business School professor, Benjamin Edelman, published a research paper entitled “Hard-Coding Bias in Google Algorithmic Search Results” which proves that Google has “hard-coded its own links to appear at the top of algorithmic search results.”
[...]
Google’s bias isn’t just limited to finance and health. In a January 2011 paper, “Measuring Bias in Organic Web Search,” written with Harvard Business School doctoral candidate Benjamin Lockwood, Edelman found that Google listed its own map service as the first result when a user queries “maps.” It’s hardly surprising, therefore, that Edelman and Lockwood discovered that 86% of map searches conducted on Google end up with the user clicking on Google Maps.
For those who are too lazy to read Edelman’s CV, it says: “Microsoft adCenter (Harvard Business School Case 908-049) (2008) with Peter Coles”
At Nokia, the anti-Ogg person had also worked for Microsoft before he uttered negative things about Ogg. As for Edelman, his top “Programming Experience” is “Microsoft Visual Basic (14+ years experience)”. Readers can decide what to make of it. Watch what he writes in his blog this month (context and more background information regarding the said incident [1, 2]).
Microsoft is afraid of Google not just because Google advances Linux; Google also goes for the jugular of Microsoft’s #1 cash cow, with news like this in recent days:
Google Pushes Cloud Connect as Office Alternative
Cloud Connect first became available in a test version last November. It’s based on technology the company acquired as part of its purchase of DocVerse, a startup created by two former Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) product managers. Cloud Connect is designed to help users of Word, PowerPoint and Excel move to Google Docs by giving them the same Office interface with the added collaborative features that Docs offers.
Joe Wilcox chose the headline “Google launches its next assault on ‘cumbersome, legacy’ Microsoft Office”
In the race to offer Microsoft Office functionality in the cloud, Google has beaten its rival getting a product out of development beta and into production release. Today Google announced global availability of Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office, which went into beta late last year. The technology builds off Google acquisition of DocVerse.
Microsoft has many reasons to be terrified of Google, whose market value nearly exceeds that of Microsoft right now (Apple’s is already way ahead). We also know, based on articles from 2011, that Microsoft pays academics for propaganda. █
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02.21.11
Posted in Bill Gates, Deception, Google, Microsoft, Search at 5:32 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Picture by Zil
Summary: Amidst allegations and reports that Fox misleads the public on purpose [1], a close look is taken at GOP agenda [2, 3] and the probable reason for the anti-Google vendetta
Yesterday we wrote about Murdoch's role in Microsoft's ruthless fight against Google. Murdoch’s role in it goes a long way back [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14] and it’s no secret that Murdoch meets Gates when he hangs out with Microsoft executives and other billionaires like himself, including those who distort the record about climate science and those who run PR/investment operations disguised as a charity (Bill Gates and Warren Buffett). A reader informed us that Glenn Beck’s recent anti-Google rhetoric may have something to do with his boss, Rupert Murdoch. There is also this new article about it in alternet.org — an article which is summarised as follows:
Beck has a Google conspiracy theory. What he doesn’t tell you is that his boss, Rupert Murdoch, has it in for the search-engine giant.
Microsoft has already destroyed Yahoo! and it then took its search userbase. It’s a bit like Nokia; Microsoft would rather destroy companies and take their market share because it cannot create something better. History is full of many examples like this, e.g. Borland, WordPerfect, Netscape. Yahoo! keeps sacking employees just like Nokia in the post-Elop era [1, 2, 3, 4].
Truthfully, we do not endorse Google for its proprietary search services, but for those who do not trust Google, here is another decent option:
Do you want a better, more secure, more private search engine? Give Duckduckgo a try. I’ve been using it almost exclusively for several months now. It’s great. Also, their !Bang feature is awesome and extremely useful.
I tried it earlier this year and I was pleased. But it would be nice to have a truly free/libre algorithm on which to build and combine many search engines of a vast scale. What we have today is insufficient. █
References from the latest news:
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The Federal Communications Commission is investigating News Corp.’s Fox to determine if the company misled the regulatory agency with regards to the operations of its television station WWOR-TV in Seacaucus, N.J.
In a letter sent to Fox on Thursday, the FCC said it needs to determine if Fox and WWOR intentionally provided “material factual information that was incorrect” or is guilty of “intentionally omitting material information.”
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I read with profound weariness a piece in Salon by Michael Lind entitled Hey, liberals: Time to give the Beck bashing a rest. Lind is apparently under the impression that (a) Rachel Maddow and Chris Matthews engage in “constant mockery” of bloviating right-wing demagogues such as Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann and Glenn Beck, and that (b) this would somehow be a bad thing, because it is likely to backfire on “liberals.”
He could not be more wrong.
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The individual issues are all too real: assaults on unions, public employees, women’s rights, immigrants, the environment, health care, voting rights, food safety, pensions, prenatal care, science, public broadcasting, and on and on.
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02.20.11
Posted in Europe, Microsoft, Search at 8:26 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg
with former Microsoft evangelist (source: Robert Scoble)
Summary: “Parliament wants to dump Microsoft Silverlight” according to Computer Weekly (UK), more Facebook-Microsoft integration is reported
According to this article from Mark Ballard, the UK continues walking away from Silver Lie. This time it’s the parliament:
Saying you can only watch Parliamentary debates on the internet if you have a computer compatible with Microsoft is like saying you can only enter the House of Lords if you shop on Savile Row.
The Parliamentary Information Communication and Technology Office (PICT) has therefore stalled its rollout of Silverlight, Microsoft’s latest multimedia technology, while it considers if there is a better way.
PICT’s reports on the matter, which we are publishing here today, reveal why PICT is reviewing its relationship with Microsoft. It is seeking to increase public participation in the democratic process, and break the limitations that proprietary software and broadcast licences place on Parliament’s use of its own recordings.
In less fortunate news, the partly Microsoft-funded Facebook (Microsoft tried to buy the whole company) not only supports or promotes OOXML and B0ng; it now also increases its sharing of personal data with Microsoft, but there’s a snag:
Unfortunately, it’s only available for Windows and IE right now. Microsoft says the approach for the new version was “make the stuff you do every day online easier,” hence the integration with Facebook, search and email. One notable difference in the new version is that the search box is smack in the center of the toolbar. Search history, suggestions and deep links are all marked distinctly in the box (by color) to help users search faster.
“The better to track what you do, my dears, and what Google does, I assume,” wrote Groklaw about it. Yes, IE/B0ng/Microsoft also sniffs people’s usage of Google [1, 2, 3]; it’s spyware. █
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