Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Caught Rigging ZD Net Poll
Dj writes "Microsoft have been found to be rigging a ZDNet
poll". Apparently they didn't dig on the idea of .NET losing.
Of course as anyone knows, never trust an online poll because this
sort of stuff is obviosly happening all the time. I just wonder how
many comments posted around the net are posted with the same
goals in mind.
Could this be the first time?
Does this REALLY surprise anyone?
Bruce Lane, KC7GR,
Blue Feather Technologies
Is there anything that the monster monopoly won't do??? Damn....... Not a shok though.
Sorry about the formatting services 15:31 Wednesday 9th January 2002 Peter Judge In December, Java was more popular than .Net for building
Web services, according to a ZDNet UK poll, but weeks
later the position had dramatically reversed; investigation
revealed just what lengths Microsoft will go to to promote
its products
Microsoft's .Net Web services technology appeared to
experience a sudden massive boost in popularity over its rival
Java, according to a poll run by ZDNet UK.
By 21 December, more than two-thirds of the respondents (69.5
percent), said they planned to deliver some applications by Web
services by the end of 2002, with a large majority of those (nearly
half the total sample) planning to use Java. Only 21.5 percent
said they planned to use Microsoft .Net -- less than the figure
(23.5 percent) planning to use neither.
But by the time the poll closed, on 5 January, the position had
dramatically changed, with three quarters of voters claiming to be
implementing .Net. This apparent sudden change of heart over
the Christmas period appears to be the result of a concerted
campaign within Microsoft.
ZDNet UK logs reveal rather obvious vote rigging, and prove that it
originated from within Microsoft:
A very high percentage of voters are from within the
microsoft.com domain.
There is a very high incidence of people attempting to cast
multiple votes, even though the poll script blocked out
most attempts at multiple voting. The one that wins the
prize made 228 attempts to vote. This person was from
within the microsoft.com domain.
Several of the voters evidently followed a link contained in
an email, the subject line of which ran: "PLEASE STOP
AND VOTE FOR .NET!" We know this, because our logs
include the Web address where visitors browsed from;
when people click there from a Microsoft Exchange email
message, Exchange helpfully gives us the subject line
and username. The people who followed that link all had
email addresses in the microsoft.com domain.
There is also clear evidence of automated voting, with
scripts attempting to post multiple times.
This is not the first time Microsoft has been caught using
dubious practices. Last August, lobbyists acting for Microsoft
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 antitrust case. US lobby group the Campaign
Against Government Waste (CAGW) posted the letters as part of
an attempt to convince attorneys general there was a grass-roots
campaign against the case.
Although votes cast after 21 December are suspect, this latest
episode illustrates the importance of Web services -- at least to
suppliers, anyway. The inevitable conclusion is that these are
some of the first salvos in what will be a bitter PR struggle.
Microsoft may have shot itself in the foot this time, but future
efforts may be a little more subtle.
I always knew I shouldn't trust those slashdot polls, and the bunch of shifty guys behind the scenes.... No wonder Cowboy Neal always wins.
;-)
According to the original article some did. Most of the votes came from an internal Microsoft email titled "STOP AND VOTE FOR .NET" though.
It's funny how the ZDNet script blocked multiple votes, but some people moronicly kept on trying to submit votes. One guy tried 228 (!) times!
My Stack Overflow user
i base all our global corporate buying decisions and software policys on a zdnet web poll
... because everyone knows online polls aren't statistically valid by any stretch of the imagination.
... because their directors weren't behind it. It sounds like it was just an chain letter people passed around saying "go vote for us!"
How many times have I seen a message saying "go vote in this poll"? Slashdot has linked to stories that happened to contain polls, and the results were clearly skewed afterwords. Remember the discussion last week about IMDB being skewed towards sci-fi in the early days? Web polls are inherently untrustworthy. Everyone knows this. No big deal.
Web polls are often rigged, and are entirely unscientific and meaningless anyway. Consumer opinions are often fake. (Hell, legitimate reviews in major media are often heavily influenced too.) The bottom line is... word-of-mouth is your most trustworthy tool.
Is sending out this much information an Exchange-specific thing?
gadgetophile.com
If you check again you will see that ZDNet now states that the poll has been rigged by MS. Too bad this probably happens all the time. At one point I actually held some hopes of that MS was going to play (almost) fair in the future. Then I woke up... Really it's a shame a company that size can't show some common sense or style.
"First lesson," Jon said. "Stick them with the pointy end."
As of today, the poll is finished and ZDNET describse how computers originating from MS's domain where responsible for most of the multiple vote attempts.
On 21 December, ZDNet posted a story reporting the preliminary results of this poll, which showed a large majority of respondents who said they planned to deliver applications via Web services by the end of 2002 favoured Java for the job. At the time, Java outranked
I added the emphasis.
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries