Comments on: Comments on 13663

Post number 13663

holloway — Wed, 09 Jan 2002 12:13:22 -0800

"This is not the first time [COMPANY] has been caught using dubious practices. Last August, lobbyists acting for [COMPANY] went beyond the grave and dispatched letters to US states' attorneys general from two deceased people as part of a campaign to persuade government prosecutors to lay off the company in the [COMPANY] case."

By: iceberg273

iceberg273 — Wed, 09 Jan 2002 12:24:42 -0800

Shame on you, [COMPANY].

By: insomnyuk

insomnyuk — Wed, 09 Jan 2002 12:27:01 -0800

This reminds me of Microsoft's Munchkin invasion, when they attacked BBS', trashing OS/2 and promoting Win95. And Passport scares the hell out of me. A friend of mine was a sysadmin for WebTV, and they stored all their credit card data on Unix servers without any encryption at all. They were also storing Passport data on Unix in the same way. Passport is the worst possible implementation of a good idea, and .NET is just another reason for me to ditch Windows, since Microsoft will just be using their OS to leverage all their new "services" that I won't want.

By: Hugh2d2

Hugh2d2 — Wed, 09 Jan 2002 12:40:00 -0800

Choices, choices, choices... do I let M$ control my desktop, or do I want to buy an Apple I-Lamp? hmmm... I know, I can install Linux and have no idea why my PC is not working, but it won't matter, cause I have no software to use with it.

By: holloway

holloway — Wed, 09 Jan 2002 12:50:13 -0800

Coming from within the Microsoft domain seems a bit too obvious, and blunt, and it makes me wonder whether they were framed (not that they're not that stupid - but I'm hoping for humanity here).

By: jpoulos

jpoulos — Wed, 09 Jan 2002 12:56:32 -0800

Hugh2d2: What does that have to do with Microsoft's business practices?

By: jdc

jdc — Wed, 09 Jan 2002 12:59:59 -0800

Framed? Giggle. In fact what you're seeing *is* evidence of humanity. It's not like the dark lord ruling from on high with an iron fist demanded Microserfs to vote--it's just that someone circulated an email petition. What this demonstrates is that people at Microsoft care about their company. (And before you flame, I'm hardly a Microsoft fan, so don't whinge, at least not to cry "M$ sucks".)

By: eyeballkid

eyeballkid — Wed, 09 Jan 2002 13:16:03 -0800

OT I just noticed that this thread has been up for an hour and there are only a handful of comments. I just wanted to point out that because holloway used [COMPANY] instead of "Microsoft" or M$, everyone breezed right over a thread that would otherwise be into the 20-30 comment range at the right now. Not a criticism of the poster, certainly, I just find it interesting.

By: rebeccablood

rebeccablood — Wed, 09 Jan 2002 13:18:56 -0800

is this an example of unscrupulous business practices, or poor online polling practices?

By: Wood

Wood — Wed, 09 Jan 2002 13:26:35 -0800

Anyone know the significance of the subject line of an email message including a url ending up in the logs of the site serving the link? That seems like a really bad idea. (e.g. "check out my wife's horrible web page")

By: Danelope

Danelope — Wed, 09 Jan 2002 13:31:56 -0800

is this an example of unscrupulous business practices, or poor online polling practices? According to ZDNet, the script did block the majority of double- and triple- (and, in one case, 228) votes. It also blocked several automated scripts. There's only so much you can do, when setting up a online voting script, to block abuse without preventing real users from being denied their "right" to vote. There are no hanging chads on the Internet, though.

By: Llama-Lime

Llama-Lime — Wed, 09 Jan 2002 13:34:26 -0800

is this an example of unscrupulous business practices, or poor online polling practices? Both. There don't really exist any good online polling practices - the sample is easily skewed, and it's virtually impossible to guarantee that each vote represents a unique voter. As jdc pointed out, the rigging of the poll almost definitely wasn't a management decision, but that doesn't make it any less insidious. To all those who doubt that Microsoft abuses it's monopoly position, just look at how the employees self-organized to deceive the public.

By: mr_crash_davis

mr_crash_davis — Wed, 09 Jan 2002 13:35:40 -0800

"There are no hanging chads on the Internet, though" Yes, there are.

By: Hugh2d2

Hugh2d2 — Wed, 09 Jan 2002 13:38:35 -0800

jpoulos, I was just pointing out the futility of trying to fight M$. What they want, they get.

By: anildash

anildash — Wed, 09 Jan 2002 14:07:47 -0800

is this an example of unscrupulous business practices, or poor online polling practices? I think it's pretty clearly the latter. This doesn't seem any different than the Linux zealots who lobbied for the penguin to be the new animal cracker, or those of us who voted for Wil Wheaton over at EW. Online polls are unscientific, and anyone with a preference (especially those who are paid to create/promote a product) is going to try to see it come out on top.

By: skallas

skallas — Wed, 09 Jan 2002 14:19:01 -0800

--it's just that someone circulated an email petition. Yep, funny how this is also on slashdot, a site that has regularly encourages its members to do the same. I guess when a company or its employees does it its wrong, but when a group of zealots does it its suddenly OK. I don't even know why people continue to put in non-cookie or non-IP-logging polls. Its not like the technology is complex or anything. I'm looking forward to all web polls either ending up with a flavor of the month type (Wil Wheaton) or old mainstays like Ayn Rand, L.Ron Hubbard, Linux, and Microsoft.

By: adnanbwp

adnanbwp — Wed, 09 Jan 2002 14:24:21 -0800

If you were an employee of the [company], and it had perched your career on the success of a new idea [.NET], then wouldn't you do any thing to make the idea a success. I dont think it was an official effort by the [company]. It's employees have used a bunch of coffee breaks.

By: fuq

fuq — Wed, 09 Jan 2002 14:28:33 -0800

[opinion].

By: donkeymon

donkeymon — Wed, 09 Jan 2002 14:31:19 -0800

I don't think that this is really a Microsoft-specific thing here. I am on a Macintosh-specific mailing list and every once in a while there is a post about some poll somewhere pitting macs agains PCs or something along that line telling us all to go vote in it. Thus holloway's use of the [company] is as much a statement about that as anything, in my view.

By: Danelope

Danelope — Wed, 09 Jan 2002 15:24:50 -0800

donkeymon: There's a difference (albeit minimal when it involves slashdotters and other zealots) between [PRODUCT] afficianados voting and a marketing-driven, corporate-sanctioned abuse of the system to try to drum up false consumer confidence. Especially when the manufacturer of [PRODUCT] repeatedly insists that their business practices are perfectly legal and never acted in an anti-competative manner. Polls along OS lines, however, are always going to incite this sort of abuse, as there are zealots in every corner.

By: quonsar

quonsar — Wed, 09 Jan 2002 15:30:47 -0800

what they don't tell you is the vast majority of respondents chose neither java or .net. the real winners were hank the angry drunken dwarf, and wil wheaton.

By: SilentSalamander

SilentSalamander — Wed, 09 Jan 2002 18:40:49 -0800

[CURSE] straight!

By: tolkhan

tolkhan — Thu, 10 Jan 2002 09:27:39 -0800

corporate-sanctioned it was?

By: joaquim

joaquim — Fri, 11 Jan 2002 11:43:47 -0800

this doesn't seem any different than the Linux zealots who lobbied for the penguin to be the new animal cracker The difference is that the Linux zealots (most of them, anyway) will not use a penguin-shaped animal cracker as proof that Linux is better/faster/tastier/whatever. [Company] and/or its henchmen would almost certainly begin using any favorable poll results to puff their product.