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Comment Re:Argh. (Score 2) 748

Bundling stuff for free isn't anti-competitive. Bundling stuff that's nominally free but acts as leverage is anti-competitive.

Including IE meant that IE became a platform that web developers targetted. A platform that was only available on systems that Microsoft decided it would be, and so they used their existing platform of Windows to make IE the new de facto platform.

Putting in something like Windows Photo Viewer isn't anti-competitive because it's not being used to leverage something else. If on the other hand, it included some spiffy new format like Windows Amazing Photo Format that was only available on Windows devices, and MS started pushing that to become the new standard that they control... that's becoming anti-competitive again. If in 10 years all cameras recorded in only the Windows Amazing Photo Format, you're going to struggle to switch to another operating system if you want to still be able to access your photos.

This is why I don't see Ubuntu including as many other applications as it likes in the package as being anti-competitive. None of them are able to force you to stay on the Ubuntu treadmill forever, whereas choosing IE 10-years back resulted in most of the web being targetted at IE, and if one wanted to switch OSes it became much harder if you still wanted to be able to access all of your sites.

As the original poster mentioned I can't see how they'd be able to use this anti-virus tool to leverage anything else? Could they corner the market on viruses? Maybe, but they already have that.

Comment Re:It's called "marketing". (Score 3, Interesting) 190

The fraud is that they claim there's a particular real-estate CEO called X who believes Y about the Galaxy Tab, and in the way it's presented it's not unreasonable for someone to believe that that person actually exists. With movies there's a clear expectation going in that it's fiction.

However, if you go and make up fake reviews about your own movies such as calling them "another winner" and attributing them to non-existant movie critics, then that's also fraud.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/4741259.stm

Comment Re:Doesn't matter if it starts out bad (Score 1) 474

This is not about teaching people to become obsessed wealth gatherers. This is about teaching them how it works so that they don't screwed over by the people who are obsessed with wealth gathering. The more you understand about economics, the better the position you're in for understanding your own worth in the system. I think it should also be extended further so that people have a greater understanding of the link between their time and the money earned, so they're fully aware that when they piss away their money on rubbish consumer goods, they're paying for it in their own time and reducing their ability to actually achieve their important real life goals.

And while I agree that the scientists, doctors, builders, plumbers etc are important as well, the Soviet Union had very skilled people as well, yet the quality of life of their citizens was poor. That comes down to economics, which is fundamentally the way in which peoples working time is distributed.

You're always going to see this pissing match between who's most important out of the "people who do stuff so we can all actually survive", the "people who push the envelope forward", and the "people who glue the system together". We've got to make sure that all these roles are understood and respected.

Comment Meanwhile 2 in 3 governments snoop on citizens (Score 1) 392

It's a damned poor state of affairs that so many people put in that situation of trust betray it.

Ideally it may be a "damned poor state of affairs" but for thousands of years people and governments have been snooping on other people to either gain an advantage or just for some tasty gossip. It's not some sudden failure in collective human kind, it's just what the majority would do in this situation if they got the power.

Technology may have made it easier to do this and given us a sense of outrage over "lowly sysadmins" having access to this sensitive data, but then I see the exact same thing being done by the government in their position of trust. Except they can pass retroactive immunity for it.

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