Bonum Certa Men Certa

Has Microsoft Gently Bribed the British Press?

"They can't outright bribe them. That's illegal and probably wouldn't work anyway - people would feel insulted. So what they need to do is ensure that the "thought leader"'s economic interest is aligned with their own."

"How this kind of thing works - Soft Bribery"



Summary: Writers at The Register and The Guardian sing Microsoft's tune and turn more hostile towards Google, on whom they rely for readers (site visitors)

LAST YEAR we showed that The Register was selling out to Microsoft and Novell. Several of our readers independently point out that something went rotten at The Register after it had signed some deals with Microsoft. It's really hard to ignore the change because The Register used to be very critical of Microsoft before Microsoft money landed on its table. One reader in particular is repeatedly showing us that The Register has become a Google-hostile powerhouse (The Register was a search partner of Microsoft). We'll come to this in a moment.



First of all, here is The Register writing about free travel/dinners from Microsoft -- ones that the monopolist intends to give to an ID cards group (it gives Microsoft more control by proxy). Those who know something about ID cards will resist the very notion of them; they are mechanisms of control, whereby the public gets managed by a few self-appointed "adults". If we have not learned anything about privacy, now is an important time to learn. For insight into the vested interests of Microsoft in ID cards, see what Microsoft is doing this year in India.

ID card campaign group No2ID has - with a little financial backing from Microsoft - won admission to the industry working group of Project STORK, the EU programme for devising interoperability standards for electronic ID systems across Europe.

[...]

The Microsoft backing will cover travel expenses, and comes from the company's corporate social responsibility fund, bless.


Influence. See what we wrote about Microsoft money on Apache's table [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18]. Because of the one-sidedness in The Register's coverage, there are mostly apologists in the comments. And actually, the staff writing for The Register nowadays includes some persistent apologists/boosters of Microsoft, who according to some readers of ours, are attacking Google quite a lot and often defending Microsoft, whereas it used to be the other way around when other people 'ran' The Register.

“This impacts Ubuntu (GNU/Linux) 10.04, which still 'sells' to its users the illusion that Yahoo! is just Yahoo!”There are some exceptions, but taken on a statistical basis, the bias lends to the perception that The Register no longer stands out from the crowd like it used to. It would require a long time to accumulate and analyse headlines, but one could definitely do this, then show the difference. This type of analysis is often being conducted in order to judge the political spectrum of particular newspapers or channels (assessing balance and spotting omissions).

Here, for example, is a new free advertisements for Windows Mobile, courtesy of Gavin Clarke who is citing his colleague Mary Jo Foley. Clarke also covers the next step of Microsoft's hijack of Yahoo!, which the EU Commission seems unable to stop. This impacts Ubuntu (GNU/Linux) 10.04, which still 'sells' to its users the illusion that Yahoo! is just Yahoo!

"But the legal battle wasn't just about Microsoft. It was about two completely different ideas of what the Web should be".

--BBC, rewriting World Wide Web history in 2010



Another British publication which has served Microsoft's interests for longer than The Register would be The Guardian (well, with the BBC it's totally obvious and blatant [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]). We gave recent examples of The Guardian's Microsoft disinformation in [1, 2, 3, 4] and the editor of The Guardian contacted us, obviously trying to stop this negative publicity that The Guardian receives for advancing a convicted monopolist and repeating its lies. "With Buzz, Google takes another giant step towards turning into Microsoft," says this new headline from The Guardian.

The search engine's answer to Facebook and Twitter is breathtakingly intrusive and takes astonishing liberties with your privacy


What The Guardian does here belittles Microsoft's crimes. The long-standing talking point from Microsoft's apologists is that other companies are "equally evil", or something along those lines. "Guardian trashes Google, again," wrote to us a reader who sent the above pointer.

Now, to be fair, Google is not perfect; far from it. But to compare Microsoft's serial abuse of the law to Google's privacy stance? Come on!

Simon Phipps (from Oracle) had something interesting to say regarding Google's secrecy. It is the opposite of what Google offers users of Buzz, namely there's the lack/contempt of privacy. Android had Phipps write:

Serious break-down of trust here, as seemingly the fusion of pragmatism and secrecy at Google is leading them to treat their community responsibilities as a low priority. We'll see much more of this from corporate FOSS users in the future, which is why I'm convinced we need to grade projects on more than just their license choice (or the warmness towards the FOSS communities of their out-of-band programmes).


Now that Simon Phipps works for Oracle rather than Sun, such statements might become harder to make (due to hypocrisy). Either way, Google's obligations to the GPL or its balance between features and privacy are hardly comparable to Microsoft's long series of serious offences.

The above was said in relation to an issue which was brought up here before:

What makes Android so special? Well, that depends on who you ask and since you are reading this, I would say Android is special because it is built on the Linux Kernel. The whosit-whatsit?

Without delving too deeply into computer science, let's just say that the "kernel" is the central component of most operating systems. The kernel acts like a bridge between the applications and the actual data manipulation that occurs at the hardware and processor level. The Linux Kernel is considered to be Free and Open Source Software (FOSS), software that you, the user, are allowed to fiddle with to change, improve, or add functionality.


Here is Motorola being pressured to open up its Android implementation (which could be a GPL violation):

But what currently is deeply upsetting a lot of Milestone customers is that Motorola advertises the Milestone as an open device without limits and compromises. With openness being a major factor for a lot of customers for choosing the Milestone over other phones. Recognizing that they effectively ended up with a totally closed device currently is a very rude awakening for a lot Motorola Milestone customers.

What are Motorola responses?

Motorola seems to be utterly surprised from the uproar they have created and till now has only come up with very short and inconclusive answers.

* Motodev comments about kernel signatures * Motodev comments about developer phones * Motorola Europe Facebook comments about Custom ROMs

In summary, Motorola Europe tells customers that they either should get a developer phone from a competitor or join the Motorola developer program, and reasons that the boot loader lock up because people otherwise “may void the warranty on a consumer device or violate the copyright on the applications”.


In this case, it's a Motorola issue, not a Google issue. Motorola has never been a Free software-friendly company, not even when it built Java+Linux phones. Hopefully that can change.

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Brett Wilson LLP Sent Over 5 Kilograms (or Over 12 Pounds) of Legal Papers! Because Writing About Microsoft Abuses is 'Illegal'.
How do you guys sleep at night? On a big pile of Microsoft money?
Extremism as a Weapon Against GNU/Linux (Microsoft Lunduke)
He ought to know the Halloween Documents. Wasn't he a Microsoft employee when these came out?
 
Links 09/07/2025: War Updates and Microsoft Moving to India to Cut Costs
Links for the day
GNU/Linux Was Always a 'Movement' of Inclusion of Tolerance
Even the licences themselves remove access barriers
Links 09/07/2025: "Subprime AI Crisis" and "OpenAI May Be in Major Trouble Financially"
Links for the day
Huge Piles of Legal Papers ('Paper DDoS') Do Not Impress Judges and Regulators
they just make judges and regulators even more suspicious of the eagerness to resort to 'paper DDoS'
Lunduke Isn't Even Hiding His Anti-Linux Agenda (From "Linux Sucks" to "Linux is Pedophiles")
just trying to make a lot of trouble
Some People Use Computers to Get Actual Work Done
Tolerance and inclusion must extend to acceptance that some people don't agree with you, might never agree with you, and imposing what allegedly works for you on them is unreasonable
Example of "Old" Things That Still Work
The notion that something being "old" implies it must be discarded is typically advanced by those looking to sell more of something
Some Scheduled Maintenance Later Today
Typically the most vulnerable service during short interruptions is IRC
Computers Are Just a Tool
People don't get married because they love weddings, folks don't join the army because they love war, and most drivers don't drive to work because they love cars
Apple Way Past Its Prime
Apple deserves a decline
The FSF's SysOps Team Recovered From Serious Hardware Issue Within Hours
About half a day ago I noticed that all/most GNU/FSF sites were not reachable and thus reached out to a contact for any details
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, July 08, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, July 08, 2025
Slopwatch: Turning Bugs Into FUD About "Linux", Getting Basic Facts Wrong
all the screenshots are of fake articles; we don't want to link to any
Technical Reasons, Not Politics: With Wayland "it feels a lot like Linux from 20-25 years ago, which is horrendously frustrating, because it feels like we wasted one or two decades of progress and stability"
Lately, quite a few benchmarks were published to show Wayland compares poorly compared to what we had
PCLinuxOS Recovering From Fire
It looks like a nightmare scenario, where even backups onsite get destroyed
Links 09/07/2025: More Heatwaves, Officials Culled in Russia
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/07/2025: XScreensaver and Resurrection
Links for the day
Links 08/07/2025: "Cyberattack Deals Blow to Russian Firmware" and "Cash Remains King"
Links for the day
FSF40 T-shirt message
by Alex Oliva
Gemini Links 08/07/2025: Creativity, Gotify with NUT Server, and Sudo Bugs
Links for the day
More on "Lunduke is Actually Sending His Audience to Attack People"
"pepe the frogs"
Links 08/07/2025: Sabotage of Networking Infrastructure, Microsoft XBox Game Pass Deemed “Unsustainable”
Links for the day
Dalai Lama Succession as Evidence That Determined, Motivated People Can Reach Their Nineties
And we need to quit talking about their death all the time
Many Lawyers (for Microsoft) and 1,316 Pages to Pick on a Litigant in Person Who Exposed Serious Microsoft Abuses
Answers must be given
Gemini Links 08/07/2025: Ancillary Justice and Small Web July
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, July 07, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, July 07, 2025
Layoffs and Shutdowns at IBM, Not Just Microsoft
Same as Microsoft
The FSF's (Free Software Foundation, Inc.) 2025 Summer Fundraiser Already Past Halfway Line
This is where GNU/Linux actually started
With Workers Back From a Holiday Weekend, Microsoft Layoffs Carry on, More Waves to Come
Now it's Monday and people are bad to work, even some journalists
Mozilla Had No Good Reason to Outsource Firefox Development to Microsoft
What does Mozilla plan to do when GitHub shuts down?
Mozilla Firefox Did Not Die, It Got Killed
To me it'll always look like Mozilla got killed by its sponsors, especially Google, which had a conflict of interest as a sponsor
You Need Not Wave a Rainbow Flag This Month to Basically Oppose Arseholes Looking to Disrupt and Divide the Community
Don't fall for it
Dan Neidle, Whom Brett Wilson LLP SLAPPed (on Behalf of Corrupt Rich Tax Evaders), Still Fighting the Good Fight
Neidle fights for the poor people
What Miguel de Icaza and Microsoft Lunduke Have in Common
Similar aims, different methods
Wayland Should Start by Dumping Its Very Ugly Logo
Wayland wins the "ugliest logo" award every year
Stop Focusing on Hair Colours, Focus on Corporate Agenda
If someone commits a crime, it does not matter if his or her hair was mostly white or there was no hair or a wig or whatever
Links 07/07/2025: Science, Conflicts, and a Fictional K-pop Group
Links for the day
Gemini Links 07/07/2025: Being a Luddite and Announcement of Gotify
Links for the day
Links 07/07/2025: XBox Effectively 'Dead', DMCA Subpoena Versus Registrar
Links for the day
The 'Corporate Neckbeard' is Not the "Good Guy"
Works for IBM
The Nasty Smear (and Stereotype) of "Neckbeard" or "Greybeard" is Ageism
This is the sort of stuff they might try to volley at critics of Wayland
Why Many of Us Use X Server and Will Continue to Use It For Many Years to Come
Don't make this about politics
Microsoft's Nat Friedman Became Unemployed the Same Time the SLAPPs Against Techrights Started Coming From His Friends (Weeks After We Had Exposed Scandals About Him and the Serial Strangler, His Best Friend, Who Got Arrested a Few Days Later)
Nat Friedman is not "Investor, entrepreneur"
Brett Wilson LLP Uses Threats to Demand Changes to Pages or Removal of Pages Without Even Revealing Which Staff Member Does That (Sometimes People From Another Firm!)
This has been in the public for years
Dan Neidle Said "It Really Then Became a Job of Tormenting" Lawyers Like Brett Wilson LLP (Who Threatened Him for Exposing Crimes, Just Like They Threatened My Wife a Few Months Later)
he and his wife decided to take on the evil people and their evil lawyers
Large Language Models (LLMs) Externalise Their Cost to the Free Software Foundation (FSF)
"The forty-sixth Free Software Bulletin is now available online!"
Weeding Out Extremism in Our Community
To me it seems like Microsoft Lunduke is rapidly becoming like a "hate preacher" who operates online, breeding an extremist ideology or trying to soften its image
Censorship Versus Fact-Checking and Quality Control
It's not censorship but a matter of quality control
Reinforcing the Allegations Some More, Bryan Lunduke Digs His Own Grave
In his latest episodes he merely repeats his own lies, which I debunked using evidence right from his own mouth
Global Warming and Free Software as a Force of Mitigation
we'll need to think about Software Freedom, not just brands like "Linux"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, July 06, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, July 06, 2025
Gemini Links 07/07/2025: BaseLibre Numerical System and TUI Rant
Links for the day