Unshareable 'special' deals

A few days ago we wrote about seemingly-illegal deals that Microsoft signs across Europe. The public is not allowed to know what it pays for [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]. Well, it's happening again, this time in the Ukraine. Someone from Microsoft says:

Following the visit of Steve Balmera in Kiev in May this year, we signed MOUs with a number of ministries and departments, and continue fruitful negotiations with the State Department of Intellectual Property.

Who could forget the Hungary incident?

Anyway, that's not all.

The Live @ edu scam is coming to a South African university, so there is backlash.

Students at the correspondence-based University of South Africa (Unisa) will be required to sign up for a Microsoft-provided email address before they are able to receive correspondence from the university.

The required email address is part of the first phase to build the MyLife portal to foster a “sense of belonging” among students, the university says.

Phase two of the project will see the university encouraging students to use other “Microsoft live services such as social networking facilities … online file storage, and Office Live workspace”.

Part of the requirements from applicants is that they must be willing to become digitally enslaved to a convicted monopolist. This makes no sense, especially in South Africa.

It's not much better in Portugal, in Italy and in Finland. Microsoft wants to capture those youngsters before they are able to make their own choices. ⬆