Bonum Certa Men Certa

“Mr Dee” from CNET Received Laptop Gift/Bribe from Microsoft

Kid with laptop



Summary: Another supposedly anonymous commenter is exposed

SOME time ago we wrote about the suspicion that “Mr Dee”, who is prolifically posting sympathetic comments about Microsoft and hostile towards its competition, is in fact a pseudonym of Andre Da Costa, whom Microsoft gave a very expensive laptop for his comprehensive 'services' (in CNET alone, it's 1260 comments and counting). The laptop is highly valuable where he lives and this is important to those who wish to expose Microsoft AstroTurfing. Perhaps under increased pressure and after overwhelming evidence supplied by Goblin, it is now confirmed by Andre Da Costa himself that he is also “Mr Dee”. As Goblin put it a few hours ago, "So Andre Da Costa has (finally) admitted to posting under another handle on Cnet (Mr Dee)...I wonder why? [...] You can see his confession on his Twitter. Question is, why have two Cnet commenting accounts? [...] At least this latest confession was made by him an not an alleged "friend" (remember the laptop "gift" incident) [...] I think this can be another example I can include in my submissions to the FTC."



“We are always getting closer to a complete presentation of how Microsoft tames conversations on the Web.”There is another important exposé coming because AstroTurf marketing is against the law in Europe (and more recently the United states). There is a lot more where that came from.

Meanwhile we also learn that Microsoft carries on with its usual behaviour at Twitter [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]. Here is a FOSS company being 'befriended' by yet another Microsoft account. Sometimes it's just Microsoft TEs who aggressively promote Microsoft to them.

We are always getting closer to a complete presentation of how Microsoft tames conversations on the Web. Here is “Mr Dee” enjoying the expensive gift Microsoft shipped him (pictures of his Acer Ferrari 5000).

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