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Drift Net > e-business The Empire Strikes Back
Have you ever gotten a text message for an adult site, or offers for erectile dysfunction pills?Two years ago, Microsoft made a “groundbreaking” deal with Verizon that enabled web services to be integrated with cellular technology. What resulted was a flood of spam e-mail sent directly to your phone, shit that you could normally disregard in your MSN Hotmail box. Have you ever gotten a text message for an adult site, or offers for erectile dysfunction pills (I’ll come to this later)? I was outraged and even somewhat frightened (who knows WHERE they got your info from) that I was having to pay for the cost of incoming text messages that I could not set a filter for, especially since Verizon offers FREE e-text messaging for the sender/spammer. Well, after years of lawsuits against Microsoft ( NYTimes cites recent class action suits in Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, and nine other states with payouts of $1.5 billion, including a $1.1 billion settlement in California for overcharging for MS Software between 1994 – 2001. This alongside multiple anti-trust suits in 2001 and stolen patented technology), the giant is hitting back, since Goliath is never one to sit idly by and let his fortune dwindle. With a major lawsuit pending against spammers like Davis Wolfgang Hawke, (who sells penis medicine – told you I would get back to it) AOL, Earthlink and Yahoo are all joining in the fun as well. Everyone knows that Hotmail’s spam control features are a joke (Hotmail, which has 110 million users, estimates that 80 percent of 2 billion messages sent via its services each day are junk), isn’t it more than coincidental that Gates is trying to take on the role of the good guy in the fight against intrusive e-mails? Funny, also, that he is the leading vocal proponent now for a new service (buying stamps to send email) that would battle the very corrupt system that he set up? Those who believe these are all just causes and effects, that Gates is responding to an epidemic he had no idea would happen, and deny the possibility that Microsoft and Bill Gates are playing the techno-sphere like a chessboard are about due for a smack in the face by reality’s glove. |
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| Recent comments by Bill Gates have stirred up a small backlash among copyright reformists |
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 08.21.2004 - 4:06 pm EDT"Roshan shares a personal anecdote about P2P software"
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