Microsoft lobbying campaign backfires. [via Slashdot] Apparently Microsoft has been going to great lengths to create the illusion of widespread support.
“Utah officials found two of the pre-fab letters [to the Attorney General] bore the typed names of dead people. Those names had been crossed out by family members who signed for them. And another letter came from ‘Tuscon, Utah,’ a city that doesn’t exist.”
This is called astroturfing (a pun based on the fact that they’re trying to fake a grass-roots campaign), and they’ve been caught for it before, in 1998.
And again in 1999:
So really, this latest attempt to make the dead speak in their defense should come as no surprise.
Addendum: The Register has a really funny take on this story. Slashdot has also picked it up. And InternetNews. And NewsFactor. The original source appears to be the Los Angeles Times, which carries the more accurate headline, “Lobbyists Tied to Microsoft Wrote Citizens’ Letters”.
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