Gates tried to Blackmail Danish Government

mocm writes "The Inquirer has a story about how Bill Gates tried to pressure the Danish prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen into accepting the European Union's proposed directive on software patents by threating to terminate the 800 jobs at Navision, which had been acquired by Microsoft." Update: 02/16 00:41 GMT by T : cfelde points out a CNET story which says that "The European vice president of Microsoft Business Solutions, Klaus Holse Andersen, denied on Tuesday that the jobs at Navision were ever at risk." Believe who you'd like.

Comments

Here's another article...

[MadMoses]

...from heise.de (in German).

SOP

[fermion]

this has become standard, at least in the US. Corporations play one state against the other to gain tax breaks, increase dole payments, and other entitlements. These welfare subsidies can net a several hundred dollars of government payments per anticipated position.

Also covered by Groklaw

[John_Sauter]

Note that this story is also being covered by Groklaw, with some good commentary by Pamela Jones.
John Sauter (J_Sauter@Empire.Net)

Blackmail or Extortion

[kenthorvath]

Is there a difference between blackmail and extortion?

According to dictionary.com, blackmail is defined as the extortion of money or something else of value from a person by the threat of exposing a criminal act or discreditable information.

Whereas extortion is defined as the Illegal use of one's official position or powers to obtain property, funds, or patronage.

Is it not extortion that has occured here?

Re:Blackmail or Extortion

[will_die]

It is neither.
It is definatly not blackmail, since there is no criminal act or discreditable information.
It is not extortion because the act of close the office and firing the people would not be illegal. Also it was not made in private.
It is definatly arm twisting or making a threating comment. Not sure how illegal that would be.

Backfire!

[redelm]

... and if I and others decide to detest M$ over a hostile action, that too is our right. The separation of business and politics is a much bigger deal in the EU than in the US. Rightfully so IMHO. M$ just lost cred bigtime, especially if this is widely reported.

As for Martha, had she tried those stunts, I'm sure that the DoJ would be happy to add bribery (maybe extortion) charges and her shareholders would've sued her to powder. There is supposed to be separation between the legislative, executive and judicial branches of govt in the US. And an independant judiciary (incl prosecutors) most everywhere else.

Re:Obligatory Simpsons Scene

[displaced80]

Nope -- we have ticks :)

Tickboxes, Tickmarks are just 'ticks'.

Amongst programmers, 'checkboxes' is understood. But if I were to tell a user to put a check in that checkbox, I'd get an odd look.

Although we do have checklists, which (oddly) are usually ticked-off. Even though the person doing the ticking would announce 'Check!'. Checkpoints are indeed 'check'points, unless you're referring to those cheque-cashing (no, not caching) shops which sometimes call themselves 'Chequepoints'.

Schoolkids will get ticks on their work, not checks.

And yes -- flashlights are torches. It's 99.9% certain that the person hearing the word will understand whether or not it's of the 'flaming' variety, based on context. That other 0.1% of the time can be quite funny/dangerous/deadly. But only to D&D players who take things too far.

CORRECTION (Oh dear)

[born_to_live_forever]

It took me about ten seconds after posting for a little niggling voice at the back of my mind to tell me that I'd better check my facts. The following paragraph in my preceding post is completely wrong:

The "true hero", as such, of the evacuation was not, in fact, a Dane - it was SS-Obergruppenführer Dr. Werner Best, the German administrator in charge of "cooperation" with the Danish government. When he learned of the plan to seize the Danish Jews (who had previously been left alone, to avoid antagonizing the Danes), he surreptitiously gave warning to his Danish contacts, who passed the word along. The entire evacuation operation was carried out largely without any government participation. I know it seems strange, even fantastic, to consider an SS man the "hero" of any situation - but nevertheless, such is the case.

Turns out, my memory had played a trick on me and I'd swapped a couple of names. True to the classic image of SS men, Werner Best was not a good guy. In fact, he was the individual who recommended implementing the "resolution of the Jewish problem in Denmark". Although his overall behaviour with regard to occupied Denmark was lenient, he certainly was not a good guy.

The actual hero of the day was Georg Duckwitz, of the German Embassy in Copenhagen. He was responsible for matters dealing with shipping, and he gave warning of the impending operation to Danish contacts.

*sigh*

Oh well, I suppose that mess-up sort of undermines my credibility - though I do think that I should get credit for issuing an immediate correction.

In any case, this little historical quibble has no bearing on the actual matter of Fogh Rasmussen's likely response to MS strong-arm tactics. But then again, you probably don't need me to tell you that politicians tend to cave in to pressure from big business...