Advertising watchdog reprimands Microsoft over &#39;facts&#39;
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Microsoft recently launched a &#39;Get the Facts&#39; ad campaign telling consumers Linux isn&#39;t cheaper than Windows. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) thinks they should get the facts too -- but it&#39;s warned Microsoft to make sure its are straight first.
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The advertising watchdog has told Toyota to modify a television commercial that it found misled consumers about how much the Japanese automaker&#39;s Prius car benefited the environment.
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An ad running in the UK that implied running a Linux operating system is ten times more expensive than running a Windows operating system has been oficially condemned as misleading by the UK&#39;s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), after public complaints
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Ziff Davis - Microsoft sources claim a British regulatory agency's objections to an anti-Linux print advertisement are moot because the ad hasn't run in any UK publications since May.
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Microsoft sources said Wednesday that a British regulatory agency&#39;s objections to an anti-Linux advertisement published as part of its controversial &quot;Get the Facts&quot; campaign are moot because the ad is no longer running.
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Media watchdog issues unprecedented, stinging rebuke for serious error of judgment.
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Linux 10 times more expensive? U.K. standards body says company's "Get the Facts" ad campaign may be misleading.
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NOVEMBER 05, 2004 (IDG NEWS SERVICE) - Countering the latest salvo of Microsoft Corp.&#39;s &quot;Get the Facts&quot; campaign against open-source software, Novell Inc.
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A poster claiming that gay people want to "abolish the family" is criticised by the advertising watchdog.
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MicrosoftÂ has filed an appeal against the latest antitrust fine imposed on it by the European Commission, a Microsoft spokesman said on Tuesday.
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Europeâs antitrust regulator has opened two new investigations into claims that Microsoft has abused its dominant market position.
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Internet giant Google was accused Monday of misleading web users and misidentifying sponsored links in a court case brought by Australia&#39;s consumer watchdog.
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AstraZeneca's advertisements defending Crestor were criticized in part because concerns remain about the drug's safety.
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LOS ANGELES (CBS.MW) - A Microsoft advertisement claiming that the Linux operating system is much more expensive to operate than its own Windows was found to be misleading by the a UK regulator on Wednesday.
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Blinded by novelty A House of Commons public spending watchdog has accused BBC chief Mark Thompson of illegally supporting Microsoft. In failing to ensure iPlayer on demand services are available to all licence fee payers he has been blinded by the novelty of the internet, it's charged.â¦
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(InfoWorld) - No one used the 'L' word, but both sides in the Microsoft Corp. antitrust battle in Europe accused each other of lying about basic facts surrounding the latest twist in the long-running saga that emerged Thursday. The European Commission sent Microsoft a so-called statement of objections Thursday accusing the software vendor of failing to provide interoperability information on "reasonable and non-discriminatory terms." This was a requirement laid out in the landmark 2004 antitrust ruling against the company. In its statement the Commission said the software giant proposes overcharging for vital interoperability information needed by software makers to allow their products to work properly with the Windows operating system. It dismissed almost all of the information Microsoft proposed revealing as not innovative and therefore not worth the price the company wants to charge to license it. Competition commissioner Neelie Kroes said Microsoft had agreed that the innovativeness of the information should be the main criterion when setting the price, but in a conference call with journalists later Thursday, Microsoft top lawyer Brad Smith denied his company had agreed innovativeness should be the main criterion. "We told the Commission we believe innovation is one of three main elements. We don't have the same interpretation of what had been established [between Microsoft and the Commission]," he said. Then ECIS, the European Committee for Interoperable Systems, accused Microsoft of misleading journalists by citing a study by accountants Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC), which, according to the software company, shows that the prices Microsoft wants to charge for licenses to the interoperability information are 30 percent below normal market rates. "It is an outrageous comparison," said Thomas Vinje, ECIS's legal advisor and a partner in the Brussels office of law firm Clifford Chance. "The PWC study compares the prices Microsoft wants to charge with the market price for much more valuable information such as software code, documentation, and full redistribution rights," he said. "What people will get with Microsoft's interoperability information is a lot less valuable. To compare it with the sort of information in the PWC study is like comparing apples with... some withered fruit," he added. The actual prices Microsoft wants to charge for licensing out the interoperability information are too complicated to share with journalists, Microsoft spokesman Tom Brookes said. He warned inquisitive journalists that there is no simple price list. The Commission believes that if all software vendors bought licenses it would amount to around 35 percent of the net profit of the industry. Microsoft's Smith dismissed this, saying: "I don't think you can conclude that." He said that if all vendors bought the licenses the total revenue Microsoft would earn would total around US$30 million -- a tiny fraction of annual software industry profits. "That $30 million figure bears no resemblance to reality, and if Microsoft can't explain how they reached this figure it has absolutely no value," Vinje said. Microsoft has four weeks to respond toÂ the latest statement of objections, after which it faces daily fines of up to â¬3 million (US$3.9 million). In the meantime, the Commission is expected to conclude its assessment of the substance of the interoperability information Microsoft submitted. It doesn't have to be innovative. In fact Microsoft's rivals, including ECIS, argue that much of the information competitors need in order to build their software so that it interoperates with the ubiquitous Windows OS on PCs is quite straightforward. Nevertheless, if it isn't revealed then rivals are stuck, Vinje said. Commission spokesman Jonathan Todd told journalists Thursday that Microsoft's continued failure to comply with the antitrust ruling is unprecedented. "In the 50 years of European antitrust policy, it's the first time we've been confronted with a company that has failed to comply with an antitrust decision," he said. "You have to look at their attitude faced with other antitrust authorities in other jurisdictions. This is a company that apparently does not like to have to conform with antitrust decisions," Todd added.
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The Bush administration has repeatedly defended Microsoft against charges of anticompetitive conduct, including a recent complaint by Google.