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Re: Astroturfers: 7 Gets it Right!

Verily I say unto thee, that Rick spake thusly:
> On Sat, 24 May 2008 13:16:00 -0400, Moshe, Goldfarb. wrote:

>> So does libeling companies like Microsoft, Novell and others with 
>> untruths

You mean the "untruths" reported by news portals and other media outlets
in every corner of the world, that Roy merely reposts here?

>> and endless amounts of SPAM.

You mean the "endless amounts" of citations against Microsoft reported
by news portals and other media outlets in every corner of the world,
that Roy merely reposts here?

>> A reliable source told me that these people are being watched and 
>> documented

IOW Ballmer told you in a memo that he was "watching" all the bad press.
Tell him to keep watching, there's plenty more where that came from.

>> as they dig their own graves. The time will come, and it's not far
>> away, when they will be asked to substantiate each and every one of
>> their claims against these companies that they seem to hate so
>> much.

You mean like the Free Software community asked Ballmer to substantiate
his claims of IP infringement in Free Software, that he subsequently ran
away from, pretending he was "too busy"?

Personally I'd love it if Ballmer challenged these so-called "untruths",
such as the "claim" that they use bribery and corruption to further
their monopoly. Unfortunately for Ballmer, he'd end up with egg on his
face, since these "untruths" are actually well documented *facts*:


[quote]
Mba-Uzoukwu wrote that Microsoft is still negotiating an agreement that
would give TSC US$400,000 (£190,323) for marketing activities around the
Classmate PCs when those computers are converted to Windows.
[/quote]

http://www.computerworlduk.com/management/government-law/public-sector/news/index.cfm?newsid=6124&pn=2


[quote]
Microsoft Sweden was later found to have offered extra "marketing
contributions" to its business partners to encourage them to vote for
OOXML, according to e-mails seen by Computer Sweden.
[/quote]

http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/08/31/Sweden-OOXML-vote-invalid_1.html


[quote]
According to at least six bloggers, Microsoft has been sending out free
top-of-the-line laptops pre-loaded with Vista as a 'no strings attached
gifts'. This 'reward' for their hard work on covering tech in general is
coincidentally right before the launch of Vista to consumers. To be
clear, these weren't loans, they were gifts, and they were
top-of-the-line Acer Ferrari laptops. Microsoft blogger Long Zheng broke
the silence over the source of the freebies.
[/quote]

http://slashdot.org/articles/06/12/27/1423234.shtml


[quote]
A ROW IS BREWING between a bunch of bloggers who took cash from
Microsoft marketing outfit and stodgy old media types who take their
bribes in less obvious ways.

The row started on Friday when the ValleyWag revealed how some "star
boggers" had taken some cash from Federated Media to repeat some
Microsoft sloganeering in copy on their websites.

Michael Arrington tells all how his Techcrunch site became
"people-ready". Gigaom's Om Malik talks about when a business becomes
"people ready". Others named and shamed include Paul Kedrosky and Matt
Marshall of Venture Beat, as well as Fred Wilson, the blogger-investor.
Ads with the Volish motto appear on the blogger's site.
[/quote]

http://www.theinquirer.net/en/inquirer/news/2007/06/25/boggers-embroiled-in-volish-bribery-kerfuffle


[quote]
Mercury News writers Mike Antonucci and Dean Takahashi demo and review
the new Halo 3, Microsoft’s much anticipated new gaming title. Nooch
calls it “one of the biggest days in videogame history.” And the duo
discuss the approximately $800 press kit that showed up in the mail for
Dean - a giant, personalized duffel bag filled with Halo 3 schwag.
[/quote]

http://blogs.mercurynews.com/aei/2007/09/24/video_dean_and_nooch_demo_halo_3/


[quote]
Microsoft sharpshooter Joachim Kempin, who was convicted of illegally
shooting antelope in Montana in 1998, has been turning his guns on a
more familiar target: Microsoft's own OEM customers.

The States' remedy hearing opened in DC yesterday, and States attorney
Steven Kuney produced a devastating memo from Kempin, then in charge of
Microsoft's OEM business, written after Judge Jackson had ordered his
break-up of the company. Kempin raises the possibility of threatening
Dell and other PC builders which promote Linux.

"I'm thinking of hitting the OEMs harder than in the past with
anti-Linux. ... they should do a delicate dance," Kempin wrote to
Ballmer, in what is sure to be a memorable addition to the phrases
("knife the baby", "cut off the air supply") with which Microsoft
enriched the English language in the first trial. Unlike those two, this
is not contested.
[/quote]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/03/19/microsoft_killed_dell_linux_states/


Maybe the DOJ investigations, and the EU Commission's ongoing antitrust
investigations and fines, are all just figments of our imaginations, and
Microsoft really isn't a bunch of gangsters, but just a little; fluffy
bunny ... who knows? Maybe you're not really astroturfing for Microsoft.
Maybe pigs really will fly one day. Anything's possible.

> So, when did your family realize you have lost your grip on reality?

The moment he signed a Microsoft contract, probably.

-- 
K.
http://slated.org

.----
| 'When it comes to knowledge, "ownership" just doesn't make sense'
|     ~ Cory Doctorow, The Guardian.  http://tinyurl.com/22bgx8
`----

Fedora release 8 (Werewolf) on sky, running kernel 2.6.23.8-63.fc8
 01:43:28 up 155 days, 22:19,  6 users,  load average: 1.25, 0.95, 0.48

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