Criticism of Microsoft - Advertising and Public Relations

Advertising and Public Relations

Critics have alleged that Microsoft has used funding to cull support from think tanks and trade organizations such as the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution (AdTI), the Independent Institute, and Americans for Technology Leadership (ATL). During the antitrust case United States v. Microsoft, ATL sent a poll to 19 state attorneys general purporting to show that "the public believes state AGs should devote their energy to causes other than Microsoft". Also during the case the Independent Institute ran full-page advertisements in the New York Times and the Washington Post defending Microsoft, which was later revealed to have funded the ad campaign. The institute published Winners, Losers, and Microsoft: Competition and Antitrust in High Technology shortly thereafter.

A press release for a 2002 report by the AdTI claimed "open-source software may offer target for terrorists." The report itself does not mention terrorism or how it would target open-source software, but does allege that open-source software may be more prone to security holes than proprietary software. It gives particular focus to GPL-licensed software, claiming that it is not cost-effective. In 2004 the AdTI announced a report, Samizdat alleging that the creator of the Linux operating system Linus Torvalds based it on MINIX. MINIX creator Andrew S. Tanenbaum strongly refuted this claim.

Microsoft has countered that it funds many think tanks besides the AdTI, such as the American Enterprise Institute, the Cato Institute, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and the Heritage Foundation and that it does not fund any specific research.

In August 2004, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) of the United Kingdom ordered Microsoft to stop a run of print ads that claimed that the total cost of ownership of Linux servers was ten times that of Windows Server 2003. The comparison included the cost of hardware, and put Linux at a disadvantage by installing it on more expensive but poorer-performing hardware compared to that used for Windows.

On January 24, 2007, Rick Jelliffe made claim on his blog that a Microsoft employee offered to pay him to make corrections in Wikipedia articles concerning Office Open XML. Microsoft spokesperson Catherine Brooker expressed the belief that the article had been "heavily written" by IBM employees who supported the rival OpenDocument format, though she provided no specific evidence. Internet entrepreneur and Wikimedia founder Jimmy Wales described Microsoft's offer as unethical.

In 2011, Moneylife.in alleged that two "anonymous comments boosting their product"—one by a Nokia employee and another by a Microsoft employee—were posted on their review of Nokia Lumia 800, which was based only on the "technical specifications" and the reviewer "hadn't laid a finger on the phone". In conclusion, Charles Arthur argued "Nobody has come out of the episode looking good. Sapkale was accused of breaking his own site's privacy policy by posting the IP and email addresses of the commenters, while the commenting duo's failure to declare any interest looked, at best, like astroturfing."