Bonum Certa Men Certa

Microsoft Announces More SPAM and Bribery Tactics

“Never wrestle with a pig—you get dirty and the pig likes it”

--Sometimes attributed to Abraham Lincoln



Transfer



Summary: Microsoft's marketing strategy turns very ugly and unethical based on reports and press releases that have received no proper attention

AS WE pointed out many times before, Microsoft loves contracting companies to do its unethical and/or illegal activities. We last mentioned this in reference to Plurk, but we have a lot of posts about Microsoft's PR agencies, which are doing nasty things to promote Microsoft.



Well, Microsoft has just hired another sort of "proxy" to do its marketing. The name of the firm is Halesowen and in their site they say:

Microsoft picks Halesowen company to feature in new advertising campaign



[...]

Simon added: “Not only have we re-initiated old relationships, but by using e-mail Marketing, we now have a targeted way to promote specific business services.”


"E-mail Marketing" a euphemism for spam, or even "legalised" spam which is uninvited bulk mail that's promotional. Well done, Microsoft. This company suits your character.

Another marketing contract has just been signed with eCoast. Here are the details:

eCoast to Provide Twitter Marketing for Microsoft



[...]

eCoast, a provider of outsourced demand generation and channel program management solutions in the technology industry, was selected by Microsoft to offer marketing services to its channel partners through the Ready-to-Go Microsoft portal.


Microsoft already uses Waggener Edstrom to 'manage' Twitter. Microsoft also ganged up against the Twitter community (real people) using Federated Media. In addition, see the following:



Microsoft marketing has neither shame nor boundaries. They probably convinced themselves that they are doing a favour to the world. As Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson once put it, “I think he [Bill Gates] has a Napoleonic concept of himself and his company, an arrogance that derives from power and unalloyed success...”

Well, look at this new development; Microsoft is hiring "independent experts" whom it pays and one cannot help thinking whether the PR agencies of Microsoft do the same thing. We know for sure about the lobbying groups and there are many confirmed cases of Microsoft AstroTurfing.

As it turns out, just like last year (when Microsoft first introduced Vista 7), there are big freebies at PDC:

Microsoft surprised attendees to November’s Professional Developers Conference with free touch-screen laptops. It wasn't largesse, for the company had an ulterior motive: to get developers to write applications that utilize touch interfaces.


Who can forget the Vista 7 laptops bribes from the previous year (PDC 2008)?

According to TechCrunch, Microsoft is now bribing some more bloggers in exchange for coverage.

Microsoft Recruits Student Bloggers With Free Software And Trips To Conferences



We’ve confirmed with Microsoft that the tech giant has launched a new program, called Student Insiders, to enlist college students to blog about Microsoft products. In return, the Microsoft “Student Insider” will be able to attend Microsoft conferences, such as Microsoft’s developer conference, PDC, and others and then write about their experiences and the products. The student will get all expenses paid to attend conferences as well as receive free training on Microsoft products. Student Insiders are expected to cover 15 events or topics a year, with at least “500 engagements per event/topic.”

It appears that Microsoft will try to recruit students with “established blogs” to write about a wide variety of Microsoft products. The advertisement we received focused on getting students to review Microsoft’s Expression Studio, a design and development software.


It is rather strange that TechCrunch complains about it because Microsoft paid Michael Arrington to recite Microsoft slogans in his blog, TechCrunch. He got exposed and turned very rude towards those who exposed him. Either way, Microsoft has an extensive history of distorting blog content by bribing bloggers. The above talks about the bribing of students, but Microsoft bribes professors too.

"Ideally, use of the competing technology becomes associated with mental deficiency, as in, "he believes in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and OS/2." Just keep rubbing it in, via the press, analysts, newsgroups, whatever. Make the complete failure of the competition's technology part of the mythology of the computer industry. We want to place selection pressure on those companies and individuals that show a genetic weakness for competitors' technologies, to make the industry increasingly resistant to such unhealthy strains, over time."

--Microsoft, internal document [PDF]



Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

[Meme] One Person, Singular Pronoun
Abusing people into abusing the English language is very poor diplomacy
New Article From Richard Stallman Explains Why He Says He and She for Unknown Person (Not 'They')
"Nowadays I use gender-neutral singular pronouns for a person whose gender I don't know"
 
Gemini Not Deflated Yet (Soon Turning 5!)
Gemini numbers still moving up, the protocol will turn five next summer
Links 30/11/2023: Belated End of Henry Kissinger and 'Popular Science' Shuts Online Magazine
Links for the day
Site Priorities and Upcoming Improvements
pages are served very fast
Ending Software Patents in Recent Years (Software Freedom Fighters MIA)
not a resolved issue
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, November 29, 2023
IRC logs for Wednesday, November 29, 2023
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news
Links 30/11/2023: Rushing Patent Cases With Shorter Trial Scheme (STS), Sanctions Not Working
Links for the day
Links 30/11/2023: Google Purging Many Accounts and Content (to Save Money), Finland Fully Seals Border With Russia
Links for the day
Lookout, It's Outlook
Outlook is all about the sharing!
Updated A Month Ago: Richard Stallman on Software Patents as Obstacles to Software Development
very recent update
The 'Smart' Attack on Power Grid Neutrality (or the Wet Dream of Tiered Pricing for Power, Essentially Punishing Poorer Households for Exercising Freedom Like Richer Households)
The dishonest marketing people tell us the age of disservice and discrimination is all about "smart" and "Hey Hi" (AI) as in algorithms akin to traffic-shaping in the context of network neutrality
Links 29/11/2023: VMware Layoffs and Too Many Microsofters Going Inside Google
Links for the day
Is BlueMail a Client of ZDNet Now?
Let's examine what BlueMail does to promote itself
Just What LINUX.COM Needed After Over a Month of Inactivity: SPAM SPAM SPAM (Linux Brand as a Spamfarm)
It's not even about Linux
Microsoft “Discriminated Based on Sexuality”
Relevant, as they love lecturing us on "diversity" and "inclusion"...
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, November 28, 2023
IRC logs for Tuesday, November 28, 2023
Media Cannot Tell the Difference Between Microsoft and Iran
a platform with back doors
Links 28/11/2023: New Zealand's Big Tobacco Pivot and Google Mass-Deleting Accounts
Links for the day
Justice is Still the Main Goal
The skulduggery seems to implicate not only Microsoft
OpenBSD Says That Even on Linux, Wayland Still Has a Number of Rough Edges (But IBM Wants to Make X Extinct)
IBM tries to impose unready software on users
[Teaser] Next Week's Part in the Series About Anti-Free Software Militants
an effort to 'cancel' us and spy on us
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news
Permacomputing
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Professor Eben Moglen on How Social Control Media Metabolises Humans and Constraints Freedom of Thought
Nothing of value would be lost if all these data-harvesting giants (profiling people) vanished overnight
IRC Proceedings: Monday, November 27, 2023
IRC logs for Monday, November 27, 2023
When Microsoft Blocks Your Access to Free Software
"Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches." [Chicago Sun-Times]
Techrights Statement on 'Cancel Culture' Going Out of Control
relates to a discussion we had in IRC last night
Stuff People Write About Linux
revisionist pieces
Links 28/11/2023: Rosy Crow 1.4.3 and Google Drive Data Loss
Links for the day