Survey Says 63% of Americans Like MS the Way It Is

Sami writes "Americans for Technology Leadership (ATL) has released the results of their Nationwide Technology Survey (in PDF). It seems that the majority of Americans (63%) think that breaking up Microsoft would be a mistake. Guess who is one of the Founding Members of ATL."

Comments

Not that suprising

[blane.bramble]

The average person probably isn't bothered about whether or not microsoft has a monopoly. Not at the moment anyway, and they probably believe that Microsoft is responsible for the technology they use, and a great innovater. It's amazing what the marketing dollar can achieve.

How the questions are posed makes a difference

[arthurs_sidekick]

Well, there's massaging the data and massaging the questions. Not that MS would have been able to get "Do you think the government should impose extreme penalties to break Microsoft's "supposed" monopoly?" on the quiz, but no doubt they could slant the questions so as to make people view the proposed governmental action in a negative light. Add to that the fact that 90% of people don't really know or care about "scary computer stuff," and you get that people aren't likely, on the whole, to want to break MS up. Add to that that many people own stock (or know and care for someone who owns stock) in MS and thus have self-interested reasons not to want to see MS broken up (not, of course, that a breakup of MS entails their stock would devalue, but as long as they believe it's likely, they'll have the motivation).

Moreover: since when do we take polls on technical questions anyhow? ("63% of people say the sun is five million miles from earth") The degree of harm caused by MS is a matter to be decided by looking at evidence most people (including, I bet, you and me) don't really know that much about. So the poll results don't seem all that meaningful anyhow.

*sigh* These are VERY loaded questions.

[Mr Z]

Go grab the PDF file, and read for yourself how loaded these questions are. Here's a quick sample:

QUESTION: If you knew that the Department of Justice was proposing a regulation that would end up slowing the pace of technological innovation, would you support or oppose the regulation? Would you stringly (support/oppose) it or (support/oppose) it somewhat?

<RANT> Most regulations are not designed to specifically slow down technical innovation. How do we know a priori that a given regulation will slow down innovation? Sure, a regulation could be designed to do that specifically, but in most cases, regulations are meant to stimulate and guide industry, while curtailing harmful practices that hurt everyone in the long run. This question begs the person being asked to oppose this particular form of regulation (regulate to slow down innovation), and then tacitly extends the answer to cover all possible forms of regulation.</RANT>

*sigh*

Alot of the questions are of this form. Go read it.

--Joe
--

A review of the survey

[guran]

(Note 1 I used to work for a survey company
note 2 I'll try to be impartial here (wrt the survey))

Here is the survey:

I'm going to read a statement and would like you to tell me if you strongly agree, somewhat agree, somewhat disagree or strongly disagree with it.
STATEMENT: Increased government regulation and litigation of the Technology industry will lead to consumers paying higher prices.

"Regulation" and "ligitation" will most likely be percieved as bad things just as "Higher prices" It is very likely that the respondant will link the two

QUESTION: Do you think increased government regulation, including the regulation of software design, will have a negative or positive effect on the high tech industry and companies, like Microsoft, to innovate and bring new products to consumers?

Government regulation of software design is not exacly what the monopoly case is about is it?

QUESTION: The U.S. Justice Department is currently suing Microsoft. How closely are you following the trial - very closely, somewhat closely, or not closely at all?

I'll just note this for now.

QUESTION: As you may know, the case impacts consumers. Some people say that Microsoft has repeatedly benefited consumers with its products. Others say Microsoft's business practices have hurt consumers. Which side do you agree with more?

Tricky one. But the two are *not* mutually exclusive. I benefit from Windows, even though I might be hurt by MS business practices.

QUESTION: Recent press reports suggest that the Justice Department will seek to break-up Microsoft into separate companies. Do you favor efforts by the government to break-up Microsoft, or do you think a penalty like break-up would be too extreme given what you know about the case?

This is a valid question. Keep in mind, though that 44% said that they did not follow the case at all

QUESTION: The Department of Justice is deciding what, if any, regulations to pursue against Microsoft. If you knew that the Department of Justice was proposing a regulation that would end up increasing the cost of software to consumers, would you support or oppose the regulation? Would you strongly (support/oppose) it or (support/oppose) it somewhat?

Duh! Mesa want chepa missosoft thingy
That question is bogus.

QUESTION: If you knew that the Department of Justice was proposing a regulation that would end up slowing the pace of technological innovation, would you support or oppose the regulation? Would you strongly (support/oppose) it or (support/oppose) it somewhat?

Ditto

QUESTION: If you knew that the Department of Justice was proposing a regulation that would give government the power to decide how to design parts of Microsoft's software, would you support or oppose the regulation? Would you strongly (support/oppose) it or (support/oppose) it somewhat?

How many slashdotters would want government code in windows?

QUESTION: Some suggest that regulation of Microsoft will require the creation of a new government office or agency. Do you support or oppose the creation of a new government office or agency to regulate or monitor Microsoft's business practices? Do you strongly (support/oppose) it or (support/oppose) it somewhat?

Again, Who wants more bureaucracy?

QUESTION: Some people say Microsoft has strong competitors - they point to the recent merger of America Online and Time Warner, as well as companies like IBM, Sony, Sun, and Apple. Other people say Microsoft doesn't have strong competitors. Which side do you agree with more?

Why did they not mention GM as well?

To summarize: That survey said *nothing*

Also they fail to say wether knowledge of the case had any impact. And just calling registered voters creates a bias too (even if that probably does not matter here).

I actually *tried* not to be partial here, but that was one of the most crappy surveys I'vs seen (and i've seen some)

Re:How would this be biased?

[Wellspring]

Ask a socialogist and statician.

Glad you asked. ;) (I am not one, but I am studying in the field...)

I looked over this survey, and it is basically a 'push poll'. That is where you ask questions which are designed to influence a person's opinion. You do this by asking questions about one point of view, especially agree/disagree questions which bring up points in a person's head. By manipulating the questions, and the order in which they are asked, and getting the wording right, you have maneuvered a person who previously didn't have an opinion into having the one you want. Especially if you imply that a person should have an opinion.

They ask all these questions which imply the importance of the trial, then ask how closely they are following the MS trial. The options were 'following closely', 'somewhat closely' and 'not following'. Surprise surprise, people pick the middle answer.

I wouldn't put too much stock in this. In fact, we should be happy that people have this instinctive fear of regulation and government intrusion into our field. If they learn the details of the MS suit, then we'll see if opinion shifts, but the last thing we want is a list of rules and procedures which would strangle the small startups before they got off the ground.

I'd say there is virtually nothing we want the government to do about MS's monopoly. Now that we have the finding of fact, there are grounds for lawsuits against MS. I can see an argument for taking the "MS embraced and extended" proprietary standards and releasing them to an industry coalition. But open sourcing Windows 2000 would accomplish nothing (except reveal to programmers what they already know about the Mother of All Kludges). Break up MS? It would be like those slime monsters in D&D which when you cut them in half, now there are two of them! We'd have three or four MS monopolies (OfficeCorp, WindozeCorp, etc).

Mainly, we can watch the companies MS buried in the past go after them now. Since the industry is moving away from the desktop anyway, MS might be contained by technology already.

Reprint from SegFault re: gullibility effect

[ch-chuck]

The average person will believe on faith any statement attributed to a scientist, a recent study showed.

Scientists reported that 93% of those surveyed believed all statements prefaced with "Scientists say", "Studies show", "Other findings include", or "According to recent research". According to this research, even when very few details of the study are given, and no controls are mentioned, 43% of respondents believe any random statistic given.

Among their other findings, these scientists have concluded that the gullibility effect is increased if unrelated vague future applications are presented. "A direct quote from someone involved in the project also has a measurable impact" said Dr. J. J. Charfman, leader of this effort. Dr. Charfman further added that a note of dissent from a random other party with no obvious qualifications actually increased the gullibility effect, contrary to expectations.

However, not all agree with Dr. Charfman's findings. "This research drastically overestimates the number of people who can read, and therefore the number of people who will be affected by reading articles of the type mentioned" pointed out Dr. C. Rackpot.

Dr. Charfman and his group believe that therapy based on their research could one day lead to a cure for cancer.

{From SegFault archives}

I took this poll.

[Otto]

I took this poll. I posted about it on /. at the time, but noone believed me, and claimed I was spreading FUD.. That's okay, I probably would have said the same thing.

Anyway, someone called me at my house and asked these exact questions (plus a lot more). But what strikes me as odd is that these results claim to have been taken on January 20-23, 2000. When someone running a survey asking me these exact same questions, it was well before that. Still in 1999, as a matter of fact.

So, I'm forced to wonder. Did they just do enough surveys until they got the results they wanted? I'm not entirely sure the same people called me as conducted this survey, but the questions are _exactly_ the same.

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