Microsoft Fakes Citizen Letters of Support 603
An Anonymous Coward writes: "According to this Seattle Times article, Microsoft is sending letters to Utah's Attorney General in support of the company, but with fake signatures of citizens (some of whom are dead!). The article says: "Letters sent in the last month are on personalized stationery using different wording, color and typefaces, details that distinguish Microsoft's efforts from lobbying tactics that go on in politics every day. State law-enforcement officials became suspicious after noticing that the same sentences appear in the letters and that some return addresses appeared invalid."" The original source appears to be this story in the LA Times today. We here at Slashdot would like to take the time to say that strong competition and innovation have been the twin hallmarks of the technology industry, and if the future is going to be as successful as the recent past, the technology sector must remain free from excess regulation.
Misleading (Score:5, Informative)
This is misleading. Microsoft is not sending the letters to the final destination; based on personal surveys, pre-written and pre-stamped letters are sent out to individuals, who then sign and send. In addition, the article states:
Utah officials found two of the pre-fab letters 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.
So the statement implying that the dead had been stuffing the ballot box is misleading, to say the least - but no explanation is offered for Tucson, Utah.
But... is is sleazy? You're damn right it is. It even sounds, from the tone of the article, like this isn't a common practice. Is it wrong? Probably.
But it's not as bad as the caption said.
(Favorite section: Microsoft complaining about 'well-funded special interest companies.' Um?)
Not Misleading (Score:3, Informative)
Regulators became suspicious of the ruse after noticing that the same sentences appear in the letters and that some return addresses appear invalid.
Hard to send out spam to invalid addresses, no?
As for that "other" group or two on the MS payroll:
Microsoft referred questions about the new campaign to the group running it, Americans for Technology Leadership, which gets some money from Microsoft but won't say how much. ATL was founded in 1999 as a spinoff of the Assn. for Competitive Technology, another pro-Microsoft group.
Asked about the relationship between the telephone calls to citizens and the subsequent letters, ATL Executive Director Jim Prendergast initially said those who agreed the prosecution was misguided merely were given suggestions about what to use in drafting their own letters. "We gave them a few bullet points, but that's about the extent of it," he said. Asked why some phrases were identical, Prendergast then conceded the letters were written by his operation. "We'd write the letter and then send it to them," he said. "That's fairly common practice."
Hmmmm. MS is not getting good value here, but I suppose it's cutting edge, the best lobby ever TM! Must be using MS Loby, cuz it's transparent and sucks:
"It's an obvious corporate attempt to manipulate citizen input," said Rick Cantrell, community relations director for the Utah attorney general.
"You can just tell these were engineered. When there's a real groundswell, people walk in, they fax, they call. We get handwritten letters."
Yawn, another second rate offering from MS.
Kissing two points of Karma goodbye! Mr. Overturf is sure to blast this one to -1 flamebait. Eat me!
Re:Misleading - REMEMBER THE BARKTO SCAM?? (Score:2, Informative)
Kudos microsoft, you really are the king of innovation!!
Re:Is this a crime? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Much less (and more) evil than it sounds (Score:2, Informative)
It is basically the difference between two people saying they waited for a green light when one of them drove through. The statements are very similar, sure, but one of them is a lie.
So me suggesting "DMCA Sucks" letters and some MS marketing person suggesting "DMCA is great" letters are similar actions, but his certainly is not grass root. If he claims it is, then he's lying.