Bonum Certa Men Certa

Microsoft Accused of Using the W3C for Marketing Purposes

Globe with cursor



Summary: Wolfgang Gruener uncovers dodgy output from the W3C, which backtracked after illegitimate promotion of Microsoft's Internet Explorer 9 (IE9)

"Winning Internet browser share is a very, very important goal for us," Bill Gates once said. That was before he and his company broke the law in order to win this "Internet browser share" Gates spoke about. Years later Microsoft distorted this whole "Internet" thing (actually the World Wide Web) with proprietary 'extensions' like ActiveX. To this date, Microsoft has a chair at W3C, which has many reasons to dislike Microsoft but was poisoned by Microsoft (a form of entryism [1, 2]).



Microsoft understands that the Internet is part of the future, so it has been desperately trying to push IE9 [1, 2] into every corner of the Web. It was even paying Reddit to promote it [1, 2] (one of the people behind the site's creation has just jumped ship, as did one of the key people behind the IE9 team).

Several days ago the Microsoft boosters were cheering over reports that Microsoft championed web standards even though it's nonsense. The source of this fishy claim was said to have been the W3C. Wolfgang Gruener had investigated and finally asked: "Did the W3C Sell Out to Microsoft?" He described this as "Shocking" and explained:

It’s the official HTML5 test that praises IE9's HTML5 features. The W3C has spoken, the IE9 is the best HTML5 browser. But my question is: How credible can the test be, if you discredit it yourself and if you quietly change the results?

[...]

What I don't like is that there appears to be a need to push IE9 more than it needs to be pushed and it may suffer credibility as a result. We have seen Microsoft's IE marketing campaign reaching from market share blog posts that go to extreme lengths in selecting convenient numbers and forgetting those that would actually represent a realistic picture. It reaches to product demonstrations in benchmarks that put rival browsers at a disadvantage by choosing outdated competing browser versions and benchmarks that are tailored to IE's strengths.

[...]

It gets better: According to our records, the IE9 version the W3C tested was not even available at the time of the test run. At the time of the test, Microsoft had not publicly communicated that PP6 has more HTML5 support than IE9 Beta: The W3C ran the test of IE9 PP6 exactly 79 minutes before the software was announced by Dean Hachamovitch during the PDC 2010 keynote and 79 minutes before the announcement of the additional HTML5 support was made. Even more strange, just hours after the HTML5 test result was posted, Microsoft's IE team decided to blog about IE9's XHTML features, which is exactly the category in which IE9 trashes its rivals. You have to admit, something fishy is going on here. That can't be all coincidence.

Hey, it does not have to be a conspiracy, right? So I wondered: Who gave the W3C the PP6 early? Who ran the test and who chose which browser would be tested and compared? I contacted the W3C's press contact Ian Jacobs as well as Microsoft's PR team with a request for clarification. Microsoft's PR agency replied with a very brief note and told me that they decline to comment beyond a blog post, whose URL I am yet to receive. Jacobs decided to simply ignore me.

Alright. Maybe he was busy?

He was not.

This morning, when I finished up this article, I noticed that the W3C had changed the test results.

[...]

I won't claim that the W3C changed the claims on its test page because of my inquiry. But the timing is rather strange nevertheless. As a journalist you know that you poke into a bee's nest when you get brief answers or no answers at all, while you see changes happening.

[...]

For now, those HTML5 test results have little credibility, if any. Especially since the W3C says that it may change the test suite, the results may change and that you can't cite the results as fact.


Audrey Watters put it as follows:

Le Hégaret admits that the test report page was misleading, and the page now features a giant red box, clarifying that the tests are a work-in-progress. But he also adds, "the report is still bogus... and the percentages are incorrect," something that raises questions not just about whether or not IE9 is HTML5 compliant, but about how the W3C is testing and reporting these specifications.


Something is rotten at the W3C and it's likely to be Microsoft.

Recent Techrights' Posts

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
 
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
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