Summary: Education site that claims to be of the EU Commission is actually run by lobbyists who promote Microsoft's interests in the classroom

SOME MONTHS ago we wrote about the European Commission opening its doors to Microsoft boosters [1, 2, 3]. André Rebentisch has found this outrageous thing a couple of days ago:

It is well understood that Microsoft is keen to get the governments into “eSkills” because it is the smart thing to do. Essentially your customers are trained with public funds on how to use your popular products. For the past decade the company has been a committed driver behind all eSkills programmes in the European Union. Nothing wrong with this, I guess it is a “Win-Win” and a matter of social responsibility to enhance the ICT skills of citizens, in particular disadvantaged ones and elderly people.

[...]

And when you look into the contact information of the website you find that the website is run by:

Magali MERINDOL DIGITALEUROPE Communications Officer T. +32 2 609 5315 M. +32 477 229 939 E. magali.merindol@digitaleurope.org www.digitaleurope.org

In other words the Communication officer of an European ICT lobbying group DIGITALEUROPE is responsible for the contents of an EU Commission website. Or as they explain:

This ground breaking initiative of the European Commission’s DG Enterprise and Industry is coordinated by DIGITALEUROPE and European Schoolnet in conjunction with twenty national partners.

This fits somewhere along with EDGI and other Microsoft lobbying groups that create Web sites which masquerade as "in the interests of European people". ⬆