Microsoft touts SCROOGLE merch: Hopes YOU'LL PAY to dump on rival 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 …
"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... )
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