"Business secretary Peter Mandelson is slimed by an environmental protestor outside the Royal Society on Carlton House Terrace, Pall Mall after allegations of 'favours for friends' over the Heathrow third runway decision" [Courtesy of "Plane Stupid", via Wikimedia]
A few days ago we showed that Gordon Brown was visiting Microsoft, just further confirming Microsoft's "special relationship" with the British government (this relationship is inter-personal too, so it runs pretty deep).
The Digital Economy Bill's passing into law is "a victory for consumer empowerment" according to Neil Thompson, general manager of Microsoft's Entertainment & Devices Division.
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The Digital Economy Bill as a whole is anything but a victory for consumers - it has highlighted serious failings in our Parliamentary process and a pandering to an industry that still lives in the dark ages. We fail to see how Thompson thinks that disconnecting users from the internet for alleged file sharing is a victory for consumers.
Microsoft was removed from the NASDAQ Global Sustainability Index (QCRD) on October 31, 2009 due to a failure to disclose at least two out of five quantitative environmental metrics that adhere to the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) G3 guidelines. Two other NASDAQ listed companies were removed (Cisco and Oracle) for similarly inadequate disclosure. Microsoft’s removal appears to conflict with the company’s stated mission, marketing and new product lines which focus heavily on improving other large corporations’ environmental footprints through technological improvements, better energy management and overall reductions in energy usage and GHG emissions. So shouldn’t Microsoft be leading the pack in stellar reporting and disclosure themselves to set the right example?
