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Microsoft Bribing Bloggers With Laptops
Slinky writes "According to at least six bloggers, Microsoft has been sending out free top-of-the-line laptops pre-loaded with Vista as a 'no strings attached gifts'. This 'reward' for their hard work on covering tech in general is coincidentally right before the launch of Vista to consumers. To be clear, these weren't loans, they were gifts, and they were top-of-the-line Acer Ferrari laptops. Microsoft blogger Long Zheng broke the silence over the source of the freebies."
That I'm a whore and can be bought. Please send my free laptop to:
Anonymous Coward
555 Mockingbird Lane
Anywhere, KS 51248
I look forward to "reviewing" Vista for you.
Since when is an "Acer Ferari" laptop a top of the line laptop. There are really only 2 types of top of the line laptops. One is an Apple MacBook Pro and its understandable why Microsoft wouldn't give that out. The other is the Thinkpad. No other PC laptop comes close to the thinkpad. Though its too bad they don't make a 15" 1600x1200 model anymore.
This is typical MS behaviour - entirely immoral and calculating ...
and where do I sign up?
Is it ethical? Probably not.
A new laptop to run Ubuntu on? Who cares?
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
I don't see this as too big a deal. What's far worse is bloggers who don't disclose the fact they got the gift in any related blog posts. Bloggers aren't expected to have any standards, but those that disclose this important information when blogging about Vista gain credibility.
Developers: We can use your help.
sure beats the Pentium 133 16mb ram 1.0gb HDD laptop running debian with no X the FSF sent me.
In a world of acronyms, the words are the real victims.
I'm still waiting for my free samples for reviewing porn movies. Shame on you, porn industry: Microsoft has overtaken you in innovation for the first time.
A free laptop that downscales and then reupscales all "unprotected" high quality signals that pass through it? Just to cover the mere possibility that you didn't pay for something? A laptop designed to detect the slightest analog voltage fluctuations, and inject crap bits into the system to make it crash, just in case you attach an alligator clip to your sound card to get free music? Or with remotely destructible device drivers that are disabled by Microsoft once the RIAA learns about a driver vulnerability that allows leakage of "protected content"? No thanks.
Someone should get the list of developers who got free laptops, so we can send them Knoppix CDs as "no strings attached gifts". These laptops already need rescuing.
Journalists have another boss and they are supposed to have professional standards. Bloggers are more easily bought.
If Microsoft didn't engage in astroturfing and sent out Microsoft products then people wouldn't blink. Instead bloggers are being put into ethical conflict just as much as if they took a cheque from Microsoft.
the more they over-think the plumbing the easier it is to stop up the pipe
The way I see it, this divides the computer-writing bloggers into four basic camps:
1. Pro-Microsoft, got a laptop
2. Pro-Microsoft, didn't get a laptop
3. Anti-Microsoft, got a laptop
4. Anti-Microsoft, didn't get a laptop
The gift effectively marginalizes group 1 -- people will say, "Sure, you say that, but you've been bribed." And it'll partly marginalize group 2, as people will suspect them of being bribed and just not admitting it.
Conversely, it empowers group 3. If they're getting 'bribes' and still criticizing Microsoft? Well, gosh, they must be of sterling moral fibre, or something.
Group 4 would be split -- there will be those who increase their criticism out of either bitterness or a sense of moral outrage, just as there might be those who tone down their criticisms out of a vague hope of getting some future handout. Indeed, there will probably be more people writing about it, period.
No, it doesn't make sense as a bribe. Looking at it as a "thank you" or at worst an inexpensive play for publicity (peanuts compared to a TV ad) makes far more sense.
A few weeks ago Microsoft called a meeting for bloggers at their Redmond Campus. Bill walks into the meeting room and sees that every blogger that showed up was using a Mac laptop. Well I guess he didn't like that, so now he decides to send out free laptops to fix things. Trouble is, it's probably going to take more than a free laptop to make them switch back.
With no strings attached, this is not a bribe. It is a calculated risk:
1. Reviewers will be far less likely to criticize Vista's complex pricing structure not having had to personally invest energy into weighing the cost/benefit of buying a mid-range edition.
2. Reviewers will be far less likely to run into technical issues resulting from running the OS on mid-range hardware.
3. More reviewers will focus more energy on features unique to Ultimate, which would be an implicit endorsement of Ultimate over all other editions.
These actions are intended to inhibit (albeit to a limited extent) the spread of unbiased criticism to those who would benefit most by it. Going back to Ethics 101, this is (however subtly) acting against the best interest of society, and therefore unethical. Of course, in a society accustomed to a continuous assault on fact from many angles (sales/marketing/politics, etc.), this will go entirely unnoticed.
From the perspective of diminished responsibility, I'd say this action is so minutely unethical that to label it "immoral" is misleading. "Guerrilla Marketing" would be a more useful characterization.
Um... Payola is illegal (in the US, anyway: YCMV) precisely because it was determined to be bribery. Originally "Payola" [Pay + Victrola] was a newspaper-coined name for a 1950s music industry scandal which resulted in fines and criminal convictions.
Today (well, for almost 50 years, really), the industry gets around the FCC regs and Payola laws by hiring "independent record promoters (not to be confused with "independent record producers"). They pay regional promoters, and the promoters pay the local radio stations. Indeed that is the sole function of these promoters, per first hand accounts, frequent reporting in the media, songs by popular groups and even Slashdot, where this issue has been discussed several times a year for ages (2001 article)). Sadly there is little political capital (and even fewer music/advertising industry contributions) to be found in pursuing it, and the FCC has turned a blind eye.
It's not just tickets to concerts or athletic events, it's expensive junkets and outright cash to program directors and radio stations, often billed as "promotion funding" (e.g. they give $1000 or some knickknacks to the radio station to be used as a prizes in a station promotion, and another $1000 or $5000 to the manager/director or station to pay for "administering" the promotion itself. The result is precisely the same as the outright bribery of the original scandal.
In recent years, NY State Atty Gen Elliot has prosecuting some of these these third party promoter arrangements as violations of his state's payola laws. Unless/until some federal prosecutor takes a case to court and gets a precedent saying it is an illegal circumvention of the payola rules/laws, it remains a legal loophole on the federal level.