hmmm
how about a Microshafted T shirt or mug
If you're bothered by the various ways Google uses the data you submit to its services to serve you targeted ads, then Microsoft has the T-shirt for you. Or a coffee mug, perhaps. You know – stuff that totally isn't ads. Microsoft aims for subtlety with its new merchandise line The software giant has opened a new section of …
Embraced, extinguished, extortioned, upgraded, unsecuritized, left to flap in the wind, innvationunbotherized incompatibilitized, opendocumentfomartized, walled gardened, apiundocumentized, apisurrepetitiouslychangerized, notuspportized, ballmered, fudded, EULAed, intellectually propertized, linuxcommunisted.
The death of Microsoft cannot come soon enough, and I do hope it is a horrid, messy one.
>> Microsoft announced record profits not long ago
A company with no future will soon burn through a few billion - Just ask Nokia. The Xbox unit alone reportedly costs 3 billion. M$ hides these losses by putting them in the same division as the patent extortion scheme.
>> and seem to finally be making a big impact in mobile
Have I missed something? Where's this big impact you're talking about? The craptastic Windows Mobile had around 10-15% of the market at its height, yet Windows Fisher Price today only has 3.5%. If that's your definition of a big impact, then I'd hate to see mediocre.
They aren't actually making any inroads in Mobile. 3% and falling for Windows Phone is nothing to shout home about, and anyone that inadvertently ended up with one won't be making that mistake again.
Microsoft are really clever as manipulating the media, those record profits most likely related to a particular quarter, as a result of hiding loads of losses in the quarter before, or for a particular product group, or a specific region, they never talk about the other areas that are haemorrhaging money.
Microsoft's impending death IS coming quickly. In all the areas that matter, Microsoft are nowhere anymore. Their only remaining strong sector, Windows, is not redundant. Nobody buys them anymore. Their latest console appears to carry on the turd-like tradition of it's two predecessors, and Office, who pays money for an Office suite in 2013?
This scroogled stuff is a last ditch desperation by Microsoft, as a personal screw them, I uninstalled my last bit of purchased software last night (Office) and installed LibreOffice in it's place.
I feel the same about A*... The death of A* cannot come soon enough, and I do hope it is a horrid, messy one.
Of course, that is just my opinion - as subjective and emotional as it may be.
The real truth - without emotion - is that all of the big boys (MS, Google, Apple, Samsung, etc) offer fine products and a great variety of consumer choices. All of the consumer/fanbois arguing is simply a colossal waste of time that only makes us angry with each other about things that are totally meaningless and exist completely outside of our world (except for writers that depend on the hate to draw people to their articles (i.e. zdnet, etc)). All of us (myself included) would simply be better off if we stopped posting to these discussions or, even better, stopped reading them. So, after I submit this I am closing my browser, getting up from the computer, and going to see what my wife and children are up to. Do you have something better to do?
Why not addressing this directly at Microsoft? Suggesting them to shut the f***ck up would also be nice.
..fanbois arguing is simply a colossal waste of time
It's particularly disgusting when a colossal waste is conducted by a psychopathic colossus with plenty of extorted money still enough to squander on some moronic PR campaigns.
RedneckMBA, if we wanted real information about computer technology we'd be reading Anandtech.
It's risky for Microsoft to be running these scroogled ads, since they are not without sin. But I am glad that people are made more aware of practices like email scraping. Google has built a surveillance machine that must make the NSA envious.
Remember the Tories using the Evil Eyes Blair campaign. That really worked for them when they were hammered in the General Election.
Negative campaigning is the last bastion of those bereft of ideas and a lesser product.
Google should release medicated bog paper with pictures of Bill Gates and Steve Balmer on the sheets to provide relief for those who have been well and truly shafted by Microsoft.
Simply LOVE THAT MUG. ^_^
Usually I truly hate corporate logo / phrase / swish / ad-cum-'style' motif, but sometimes fun is simply...fun. If I drank coffee (or tea) I certainly would not mind it being in that mug.
Assuming that it was not made in China with lead-tainted glaze, that is.
This latest tactic in the already pathetic (if not down right dishonest) Scroogled campaign is despicable. Not to mention unprecedented in the software industry. I work for one of the biggest software companies in the world (who happens to compete directly, as well as partner with Google depending on which part of the business you are in) and would be astounded and ashamed if we stooped to this level of bad taste marketing. The fact that MS are actually selling these items shows even more how desperate and out of ideas they actually are.
Is it any wonder their products are awful when they choose to invest their cash and the skills of their employees on these campaigns? Instead of actually improving their existing products or developing new ones (that other companies have not shown them there is a market for in the first place).
The CMO should be escorted from the building for approving the Scroogled campaign in the first place. Although on reflection it may have been forced on her by Ballmer.
You know google doesn't actually read your emails when it scans them any more than Microsoft reads your email when it scans them for Hotmail.
Had a hotmail account years ago and was always amazed by how much spam got through. Then I read how the spammers were paying MS to allow their spam through the filters.
Why can't you opt out of using Google's services? Have they hardcoded it into the BIOS of your system? Overwritten system libraries with versions which upload all your stuff to them? Forced you at gunpoint to type their URI's into the address bar of IE?
Seriously, I along with many others am genuinely interested in why you can't opt out of Google.
You can sort of opt out by not using the services. Search; there's Ixquick and DuckDuckGo; Browser there's multiple choices (even de-fanged versions of Chrome); Lots of choice for email. And, of course, you need to load your browser up with anti-trackers like Ghostery and similar.
But it's an effort and requires a certain amount of self-sacrifice so most people don't bother.
Also, to conduct business a lot of people use GTalk and the document thing, so you can only opt out so far.
a lot of people use GTalk
… which is just XMPP under the covers. Don't like Google? Use any public server or start up your own, and you can still talk to people on Google Talk or any other public XMPP server.
Let's see you do the same with Skype or MSN Messenger.
Seriously, I along with many others am genuinely interested in why you can't opt out of Google.
To use the Android trademark, the closed-source Google applications must be included. But more than this, manufacturers are prohibited from releasing both Google-approved and non-Google approved devices, which is an enormous barrier to forking Android.
Amazon is of course having a go - and best of luck to them - but it's an uphill battle.
Can you do the same to Microsoft Windows, just for a start?
No, but the question was about Google.
So don't use Android, use iOS or WinPho.
As it happens, I don't use Android, but who cares but me? :)
This idea that everyone is forced to somehow use Google is complete guff, and I do wish people would stop going around posting such rubbish.
But it isn't complete rubbish. Why do you think that Samsung handsets have so many dual applications? They're forced by terms of the license agreement to bundle the Google services, which are not open source.
Google employees have themselves said that the license agreement is how they get manufacturers to do what Google wants, which is ensure that buyers are faced with Google services, first and foremost, and that has an enormous effect on consumer choice.
Regarding the scroogled campaign, it is, like almost all MS public relations, cringingly bad.
To use the Android trademark, the closed-source Google applications must be included. But more than this, manufacturers are prohibited from releasing both Google-approved and non-Google approved devices, which is an enormous barrier to forking Android
So don't use Android, use iOS or WinPho.
This idea that everyone is forced to somehow use Google is complete guff, and I do wish people would stop going around posting such rubbish.
@obnoxiousGit: "I along with many others am genuinely interested in why you can't opt out of Google."
You may not have a Google account or an Android phone, but your emails end up on Google servers because you communicate with people using GMail. You also browse, and even if you never use Google's search you still wander, perhaps unwittingly, to sites using Google services and collecting information in the process (e.g., via Google Analytics). Thus Google can still guess your age, sex, tax bracket, interest in S&M, and other useful things with a significant degree of confidence and serve targeted ads to you. All this without you ever having agreed to their ToS or browsing to google.com.
You can go a fairly long way to protect yourself in a multitude of ways. That's not opting out though - mostly it's taking active measures against the effects (ads and analytics), which is a totally different kettle of fish. Do all that, but the uneasy feeling that some info is collected by the do-no-evil company will remain.
In this sense Google are much more pervasive, IMHO, than Microsoft. This is not so much due to them being inherently more evil, but to the difference in the main business model. It is easier to avoid Microsoft (I have, for most of my career), than Google. Blocking ads and 3rd party analytics is simpler, and if you do, it may even make Google less interested in you (spammers are not interested in the non-gullible part of their audience, either). That's still not an opt-out.
"Keep calm while ...we steal your data"... Google, of course, does no such thing.
Interesting statement. How would you categorize Google Books, a project based on copying copyrighted works, in which Google used its might to simply brush aside the objections of the Author's Guild ?
Google has settled out of court, and the legal process rumbles on. A reasonable person might therefore use the word "take", or "appropriate", or steal.
Opps . . . .
Except US District Judge Denny Chin doesn't agree with the Author's Guild. Apparently he rejected a proposed settlement agreed to by both sides.
I just can't see why an author needs to be paid 70 years after his death. Unless of course I can get in on the deal :)
Here is the ruling:
http://publicknowledge.org/files/google%20summary%20judgment%20final.pdf
This and others calling out the culpability of negative attacks, yet look at most of these comments. pure Clockwork orange'ish rage and hatred. To put a civil spin on it and make the same logical point that there is indeed an issue, have you ever gotten a free t-shirt or coffee cup from Google and Apple? No of course not as they dont have to bribe with swag. They win on product. So i agree that there is no value or point to msft's give away other than to bleed away EPS from investors and to line the pockets of their massive MDF backoffice channel. So, please note I made a legitimate point relevant to this thread without talking like a coked out/fat/drunk/hostile and corrupt canadian mayor... the world has gone mad...
"When all you can do is negatively attack"
Seriously?? You think this is the only thing they do? This isn't even their only marketing campaign.
I do agree negative ad campaigns are normally dangerous.
But the internet and computer buyers aren't normal. Look at how many people loved Apple's negative marketing.
And Samsung's. And Nokia's.
Of course, the difference here is that it's someone bashing Google instead of Apple or Microsoft, which might be the reason for the vitriol in the comments.
Personally, that mug is the first MS product I've actually wanted to buy in years. And yes, I use Google services, I just like the humour.
You know, whenever I see Microsoft marketing, ads etc it kind of reminds of political party ads (specifically Tory ones Im afraid). The reason is because it is an attempt to seem clever and/or funny that just ends up being a bit of a comedic train wreck.
I genuinely get a really uneasy feeling about stuff like this in the same way that I get uneasy if I end up speaking to someone at a party who's just a little bit too enthusiastic about his gun/porn/sword/knife collection or neighbour's teenagers.
This ickiness is more or less standard whenever The Establishment tries to have a go at being Edgy, New or Interesting. They always almost exactly manage to not pull it off.
Of course, the chutzpah of MS slagging Google off for being unethical lurks vaguely off camera like an enormous, flatulent elephant. I can't help the suspicion that at any second its ready to enter the frame and start shitting everywhere.
Im giving it to them willingly. In return they give the best internet search engine, a very good mobile OS, a great browser, and a tremendous cloud storage solution. Plus as a bonus they allow me to buy amazingly specced mobile phones, and tablets for very cheap prices.
Don't kid yourself. Google is an ad giant who only creates "free" products to sell you more ad's. These platforms offer you the consumer a means to want to keep using it. There is no other way their business model would work out.
Yes, we feel we're gaining something by having these services, but in reality you're just locking yourself into Google's tech. It certianly is bloody convienent and on top of that they do provide good user expereinces, but on the whole they are in a way becoming worse than Microsoft.
Microsoft's definatly not the good guy here, they just were late to game and are struggling to catch up, but I would be cautious of any unwavering support of any company thats goal is to keep you tied to there services only.
All in all, I don't mind the attempt, certianly it's a pot and kettle situation, but I chuckled at the mug. I think the Scrooggle tag line is horribly stupid and I wouldn't go out of my way to buy any of it, but if it was a gift I wouldn't bastardize it (well unless I can channel my inner BOFH).
Dont worry i know exactly what i give up to use google and there spiders web of services. And i think its worth it. Ads dont bother me, profiling dosent bother me, looking at my emails for keywords dosent bother me, i dont care if they know where i live and what adult entertainment i enjoy or what i eat for supper. I understand why it would for some people, and as soon as it bothers me, i will give them the heave ho, no matter how painful. But googles "free" services are among the best in the business, and suit me perfectly.
Google are very clear on the deal on offer. In exchange for non-identifable information that allows them to serve me targetted adverts (as opposed to untargetted), they give me the following cool stuff, for no money.
http://www.google.com/intl/en/about/products/
I'm more than happy with the deal, and under no illusions what I have given up in exchange for this.
Wanting to make a profit isn't evil. Companies big and small do it. People know that Ford makes cars and Sony makes PCs or whatever. Most people (non-techies) don't realize that Google makes money by following you around and reporting everything that you do to others. Period.
Microsoft's Scroogled team explained in a blog post on Wednesday. "Now, there's a new way for people to express themselves and their misgivings about Google – with Scroogled gear from the brand new Scroogled Store."
Of course if they have real misgivings, they could just stop using Google services and switch to Microsoft services instead... yeah, right.
... but I do care about the fact that so many people immediately jump to Google's defence against Microsoft when it's blatently obvious that Google are becoming the new Microsoft, complete with their own raft of tricks, nastiness and evil.
Is it just that we truely don't learn from history and are doomed to go round and round this cycle of damning the old evil until we realise - too late - that what we had been capaigning for had become the new evil? Or is it just more obvious because until now we have not had the internet to shout about it on?
I look forward to next time round the cycle, with Google where Microsoft is now - I wonder how many of my era will take to the web and try to fight Google's corner, only to be accused of being shills by the new generation, who are so tied up with defending their evil-in-the-making. I have the feeling that I'll just be sitting back and having a bloody good laugh at it all.
The philosophy that "everything is equal to everything else" is a cool one. Equating Google with Microsoft is also a pretty nice idea. Let's see what we get there:
-- can we recall any similar shitty PR campaigns Google had ever initiated in the past against Microsoft or anybody else?
-- did Google ever try to lock-in to their products?
-- have Google been imposing it's proprietary products upon humanity for the last 20 years?
-- how many times did Google try to embrace and extinguish, just like Microsoft had done in the Java/Visual J++ or Netscape/IE controversies?
-- how many times did Google try to impose it's proprietary standards and protocols on consumers like ActiveSync, MSO and other formats?
-- how many times did Google try to extort money by (ab)using the patent system and it's own bogus patents, as a means to compensate the lack of its own innovative ideas ( not as a countermeasure against someone else that was trying to do just that)?
-- when did Google last time try to insert some secret API's in their product to acquire an unfair advantage against it's competitors?
-- is there a Google Tax and bundling of their messy software a consumer has to pay for no matter what?
-- how much damage did Google do to contaminate the culture of IT with its poor software design, lack of provision and constant drive to monopolize the Schools, Universities and other institutions?
-- can you not simply opt out using Google's free products by not going google.com, closing gmail account, not buying an Android device approved by Google (the most source code of which is freely available)? Just like when you virtually cannot avoid some non-free Microsoft products?
@eulampios - I guess you missed the whole "complete with their own raft of tricks, nastiness and evil" statement (there, put it in bold so it should be more obvious).
But otherwise, congratulations on successfully listing what Google may get up to as their arrogance continues to grow.
RyokuMas,
you wrote: Google may get up to as their arrogance continues to grow
So thank you for being honest. The "may" or "might" is the crucial meaning there. It's not up to us to project what might happen in the future. However, in case you want to do forecasting more wisely, I think, the best way here is to extrapolate from the previous history of the same entity. We should be more concerned about the present though. In this present Google is still an angel (not by themselves) but rather in comparison to any of the big fat bastards: Microsoft, Apple or Oracle.
Developers!Developers!Developers!Developers!Developers!Developers!Developers!Developers!Develop
ers!Developers!Developers!Developers!Developers!Developers!Developers!Developers!Developers!Dev
elopers!Developers!Developers!Developers!Developers!Developers!Developers!Developers!Developers!
Developers!Developers!Developers!Developers!Developers!Developers!Developers!Developers!Develop
ers!Developers!Developers!Developers!Developers!Developers!Developers!Developers!Developers!Dev
(you will need to print it out on clear sticky film and wrap it around the glass)
Google mining merchants’ proprietary business data?
From early 2000 until 2011 about the time of settlement with DOJ, Google offered merchants 1) Product Feed uploads of their products for organic display onto Google Search and 2) Google Analytics that provides merchants with insight on customers’ purchases, buying patterns, preferences and product specifics. During this time, Merchants’ products rose organically on internet.
Google appears to have mined and analyzed merchants’ business data for all this time and started suppressing or blocking non-advertising merchants’ high volume products while pushing the exact same products of advertisers to maximize its own gain. For example, suddenly, the sales of our top selling products plummeted to next to nothing because we do not subscribe to Google demand for advertisement dollars while the same products continue in heavy demand.
It is time, Google stop this monopolistic abuse deceptive business practice, be ethical in its dealing with online merchants.
It is time Google spend its monopolistic resources on blocking illegal steroid products on its properties – You Tube, Search results, and advertisements – rather than blocking non-advertising merchants’ products.
I have always seen this as a silly and desperate ad campaign. If what they say is true and you honestly care about your privacy then email should be the last issue you care about. It is common knowledge that email is insecure. They are sent unencrypted to many servers before it arrives at intended user(s). The only way to truly hide your activity would be to write the email off line, get on a VPN, get on a secure email client with PGP, and send. Even then it is not fool proof.
Sure Google uses our data, but not to launch drone attacks on us, and we do agree to it in the TOS.
But what about the NSA and GCHQ?
How about a similar campaign against them?
I strongly suspect that MS's unhappiness with Google is transference of their disgust with the NSA. But they're scared to do a campaign against the NSA. (But (outside of the true heroes at The Guardian and Der Spiegle, aren't we all?)
Remember, negative marketing has a track record of working amongst a large segment of the buying public: Apple Fanbois.
In fact, I'd say that IBM and MS are the only companies to not engage in negative marketing of any kind up to now -- and look where their restraint has gotten them.
IBM marketing "restrained"?! The same IBM who practically _invented_ FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) as a tactic for attacking their competitors and frightening customers into buying IBM?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt
Oh yeah, and remember Microsofts stance on the "communist" Open Source movement? Classic FUD
You, sir, owe me a new keyboard.
What happens to all the lovely data harvested by bing then?
Ok, they aren't as good as providing search results so there isn't enough data, but how exactly do they plan to monetize bing if not somehow using "our" data?
We know how google work thanks, those of us who choose to use their (bloody brilliant) services do so, in the most part, aware of this.
I remember Visual J++. A free IDE. Got it on a Computer World CD iirc.
This was before the internet. Or rather, before I knew about the internet. Or could have even afforded the internet, had I known about it.
I was learning Java. I was going to be a superstar. I read James Gosling's code and my head spun, my heart skipped a beat, and my pants took a poop. Still, I ventured further.
All thanks to Microsoft. A true 'Integrated Development Environment' in my grubby little hands. Cross Platform. Performs on any browser...
I started out with the obligatory "Hello World". What can I say? I was a noob. A drone. Unimaginative. It could have been "FU_M$", but alas, I just didn't have the wherewithal. I was lacking in the wit and guile department, but hey, I was trying, and I was winning, for a while. With my new shiny cross platform I.D.E. Don't say you haven't done the same when you were learning PERL or ADA, or ERLANG!
If you've read this far, you know how the story ends. It was a thing of power and beauty to hit that kinky little compile button at the top. Of my I.D.E. And not return too many errors, or warnings even. (Always was very good at ignoring the warnings, but errors were a bit harder to get around)
Anyway, I got it to work eventually. Trumpets sounded. Well at least in Internet Explorer, because it wouldn't bloody work in Netscape Navigator. Cross-Platform my bung-hole!
And the fact that they changed the event handling model significantly after the 1.02 JDK, which then became the J2SE, didn't help. But stop me now. I was meant to be having a go at Microsoft not Sun Microsystems.
I ended up re-writing it all in Lingo anyway for a Director Script. Don't let me have a go at Macromedia here. And that was even more fun! It was a teach yourself to play guitar with images and chord patterns and samples of the very chords themselves. But I'm drifting down memory lane here and just blowing my own blow-hole.
Where was I? Oh yes. Remembering what a sneaky little embrace and extend and extinguish bunch of merchants Microsoft were. Lot of people tell me they haven't changed since then. I gave up coding not too long after that. Not Microsoft's fault. I was just crap. But still. I got around to hacking some PERL just for the crack. It was nearly 1000 LOC. Guess what it said? "Hello World".
:-)
If you remove their ability to scan your emails, your personal details, your surfing habits from all of the sites running Google analytics... etc ... And then there's Android, and then Chrome, and their new TV device...
How much data is being slupped about you?
And because they do it, other products like smart TV is doing the same thing.
Damn it, like any other red blooded Ameriken, I went to the internet so I can watch p0rn in the privacy of my own home. And now we know that its not private from Google and others. Maybe I should start a chapter of PAA (P0rn Addicts Annon)? I have never felt so violated....
Google is 'Big Brother' since they are a Global brand and they put the CIA and NSA to shame....
(Think about it... )