Bonum Certa Men Certa

Microsoft and Facebook Share Data, Advertisements, and Bad Practices

Scoble and Zuckerberg
Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg
with a former Microsoft evangelist who more recently joined Rackspace only to see it aligning with Microsoft a year and half later (source: Robert Scoble)



Summary: How Microsoft and Facebook continue to disrespect people following their alliances and partnerships which lead to incredible distrust

IN OUR previous posts about Facebook we showed that Microsoft gets direct access to Facebook data. Well, more data will soon be attainable by Microsoft which links Facebook Chat to Windows Live Messenger for IM.



Microsoft says it will roll out Facebook Chat as part of Windows Live Messenger initially in the U.S., U.K., France, Brazil, Germany and Russia. New countries and geographies will be added over time.


A few years ago Microsoft tried to buy Facebook; instead, they eventually became close partners and Facebook is partly owned by Microsoft now. One person has passed us information about what is potentially Microsoft guerrilla marketing in Facebook. To quote with appropriate redactions that keep the parties safe:

Is Microsoft ghost writing Facebook pages for their partner's employees? I've got a hunch that they are and it will be easy to check up on. [...]

An acquaintance's Facebook page is all about Microsoft these days. He's given himself a middle name of "Mr. [Microsoft product]" and all of his messages are about Microsoft junk. I thought that was strange because the last time I talked to him he was down on Microsoft because someone rooted his NT based ftp server.

I'm going to give the guy a call tonight to find out what's up. It's possible the guy has been converted to a walking Microsoft advertisement after years of work for a Microsoft partner. I'll take a screenshot to share with you if it turns out that he's unaware or if the page is ghostwritten. If it is ghost written, he might not be able to say so and he might not want to be a published example but you should see what I mean even if you should not share it. Chances are that you won't need anything about my friend at all.

You can verify my hunch yourself. Lack of originality is a signature of Microsoft campaigns, so it should be easy to find hundreds of people named after Microsoft junk. If my hunch is right, these ghostwritten accounts will all have the same lame Microsoft copy paste comments and talking points. Have a look and let me know if you find anything.

If my hunch is right, Microsoft has sunk to new lows in Astroturf and another danger of Microsoft controlled social media has been exposed. Exploiting the trust people have in their friends and neighbors is the Facebook business model and it would not be surprising for 15% investor Microsoft to take advantage of Facebook sneaky ways. Microsoft's PR department writes blogs for Microsoft's employees and they were caught sending snail mail on behalf of others, even dead people, to the US Congress. Microsoft has impersonated people like Bruce Perens and Roy Schestowitz on bulletin boards and other social media. We also know Microsoft people promote Microsoft friendly opinion and discourage everything else. Sticking opinions into the mouths of people's friends would be a new low but an entirely predictable one. Free software social networking will avoid this pitfall with public key infrastructure.

If my hunch is wrong, well, shame on my friend for being such a tool.


Facebook is now tracking people too and Microsoft receives a copy of this data:

It should come as no surprise that Facebook is using Microsoft's Bing Maps to pinpoint locations in Places.

Microsoft made a considerable investment in Facebook several years ago, and other Microsoft services such as Bing search and Microsoft Docs are already integrated with Facebook.


Facebook may be using Free software as the underlying stack for its operations, but everything else is proprietary and to make things worse, Facebook violates Free software licences to make proprietary software for proprietary platforms:

Facebook Caught Plagiarizing Open Source Code in the Official iPhone App



[...]

One of the many nifty features present in the official Facebook app for iPhone is the “Pull to Refresh” functionality, which was pioneered by Tweetie. This UI (user interface) element is derived from the open source TTTableHeaderDragRefreshView class created by Enormogo. Unfortunately, it appears that Facebook was using third party open source code without proper attribution.


Microsoft did this too and it got caught several times last year. Bad minds think alike. "Microsoft pulls a 'Facebook' by exposing Windows Live users' names," says the sceptical Microsoft booster:

I have to point out, it's not the fact that a relatively small number of users are vocally complaining across more than a half-dozen help forum strings that caused me to write about this. It's the fact that Microsoft pulled a "Facebook" and exposed users names and other info that was previously not visible to anyone.


How tactless. Is it not hypocritical for Microsoft to accuse Google of privacy violations?

Recent Techrights' Posts

10 Out of 10: RMS Attracts Massive Audience in Göteborg, Sweden (All Seats Occupied, Some People Standing)
a 55-second clip of his talk
The Lawsuit by Clients of Brett Wilson LLP Against Brett Wilson LLP is Officially On, It is Progressing, The 'Experts' Pick Outside Law Firms (RPC and Mills & Reeve) to Spare Them From Litigants in Person
So it is probably quite potent
Slopwatch: Plagiarism and "Linux" Articles by Bots
Sites that do this won't survive; many of them rely on slop services (suppliers) that will cease to exist after the bubble bursts
 
The 'Culture Wars' in Free Software Have Gone Out of Control
Social control media amplifies such utterly infantile discourse
Teaser: To Compensate for the Fact Our Clients Are Terrible Human Beings Who Strangle Women (While on Microsoft's Payroll) and We Get Paid by Mystery Parties We Bombard You and Your Wife With Almost 10 Kilograms of Legal Papers
If you can't win an argument, then drown the other side with papers?
Another Wave of Microsoft Layoffs, This Time During National Day Holiday
This time it's China again
Staying Happy in Times of Crackdowns on Civil Society
Optimism in this sort of "new reality" or "new normal" seems like something for the irrational person
"Nobel" Exploited Posthumously for "AI" Hype, Now They Do the Same With "Quantum"
ere have been many jokes about "Nobel" for peace (often granted to pro-war people) and a fake one for "Economics" (establishment propaganda)
Distinguished Lecture by Richard Stallman This Coming Monday in Rome
After "Free software, Crucial for Freedom in a Digital World"
Links 10/10/2025: Putin Admits Russia Downed Azerbaijan Airlines Jet, More New Heat Records
Links for the day
Noteworthy Claim That IBM is Firing a Lot of Lawyers This Week (RAs in the Legal Department)
A lot of what they do is patent 'trolling' or lawyering up against their own staff (e.g. HR disputes)
Links 10/10/2025: US Judge Bars Attacks by ICE On Journalists and Protesters; “We Took The Freedom of Speech Away” Says the President
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Serial Sloppers, Google News Gifting Slopfarms, and Fake News/Plagiarism About "Linux"
Google itself is a slop pusher these days
Qualcomm, the New Owner of Arduino, Blasted for Its Software Patents Tax on 'Smartphones'
A lot of Qualcomm's patents are on software. We wrote about this in prior years.
XBox Layoffs Rumours, Downtime, and Criticism From XBox Co-Founder
"everyone is ditching the xbox."
Links 10/10/2025: Honoring The Legacy Of Robert Murray-Smith, Many Articles on the Hey Hi (AI) Bubble
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: October Gothic and Reading Middle Earth Role Playing; C and Ada
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 09, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 09, 2025
Links 09/10/2025: Farewell to Jane Goodall, California Bans Algorithmic Price-Fixing
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: Lost Wages and a Saga Of Continuing To Use Palm PDAs
Links for the day
Richard Stallman's Talk in Helsinki is Done. Tomorrow Göteborg.
There are scarce details in Finnish about Dr. Stallman's talk
New XBox Leaks Probably Serve to Confirm XBox's Collapse (Many More Layoffs)
It's very much consistent with what many other sites have reported lately
The Slop Song
The train wreck marches on
LLM Slop/Advanced Plagiarism Flooding the Zone With Capital That Does Not Exist
Many publishers out there still participate in this bubble instead of calling it what it is
Links 09/10/2025: Sacked Microsoft Workers Make "Sackbird", IBM Taps CockroachDB for PostgreSQL
Links for the day
"Happy Hacking Day" Richard Stallman Talk This Afternoon (From 14:00 to 16:00) at Haaga-Helia University in Pasila
Richard Stallman in Helsinki, Finland
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 08, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 08, 2025
Links 09/10/2025: Impact of Microsoft Layoffs, More Data Breaches
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: Autumn Blues and C IRC Bot
Links for the day
Slopwatch Appreciated by Real Authors of GNU/Linux Articles
We do try to keep on top of those things
Upgraded R.R.R.R.R.R. Today
The Web of 2025 is full of garbage, not limited to slopfarms
Freedom From Proprietary Prisons
Forking always an option
IBM's Watson Died in 1956, Now Watson Dies Again
IBM is becoming just a reseller of GAFAM and other stuff
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, UbuntuPIT, and Google News
We've also just noticed more slop from UbuntuPIT
Microsoft Says That Constant Mass Layoffs Are Success, the Media Isn't Buying This Microsoft Narrative Anymore
If people in the media feel an obligation to repeat whatever lies Microsoft tells, what point will there be to the media?
Links 08/10/2025: "Mali Puts Free Speech on Trial" And Apple Enforces Dictatorship
Links for the day
Links 08/10/2025: ‘Death to Spotify’ and Law to Ban Loud Commercials on Streaming (Dis)Services
Links for the day
Links 08/10/2025: Real Innovation and Nina.chat is Dead
Links for the day
Links 08/10/2025: Y2K38 Bug is a Vulnerability, Chat Control in Europe a Threat
Links for the day
Microsoft Windows is No Longer an Operating System, It's Surveillance Project
Why is this even legal to preload on PCs outside the US?
How and Why Once-Legitimate Sites Turn Into Slopfarms
Many sites will go offline and many social control networks will shut down once they realise or even openly admit they spend money and time gardening a bunch of bots and slop
UbuntuPIT Became a Slopfarm and Gnoppix Tarnishes Its Own Brand With Slop
It fits all the characteristics of mildly-edited (if at all) slop
Slopwatch: Linux Journal and Other Slopfarms
GAFAM needs to go the way of the dodo
Gemini Links 08/10/2025: "Seek Seek Revolution" and Gradient Backgrounds
Links for the day
Qualcomm Arduino Takes Aim at Raspberry Pi
Qualcomm is a Microsoft partner
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 07, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 07, 2025
Stagnation of the Economy and What Free Software Can (or Could) Do For It
If your economic model is based on a pyramid of lies, it won't last very long
Social Control Media is Sinking
it would rightly seem like the era of centralised "social" sites (they're not social, they're about controlling the users) is ending, not overnight but gradually