[plug] [OT] Astroturfing again!

[Leon Brooks]

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=528&ncid=528&e=15&u=/ap/20021014/ap_on_hi_te/microsoft_ad

Red-faced executives at Microsoft Corp. on Monday pulled a breezy 
advertisement purportedly by a free-lance writer who switched to using 
Windows software from the rival Macintosh (news - web sites), amid questions 
about whether the woman actually exists. 

An employee at a public relations company hired by Microsoft, Valerie G. 
Mallinson of Shoreline, Wash., later acknowledged she was Microsoft's 
mysterious convert. The Associated Press tracked Mallinson by examining 
personal data hidden within documents that Microsoft had published with its 
controversial ad. 

"I guess I can tell the truth," Mallinson said Monday. "It was me. I made the 
switch." 

Microsoft's effort was an apparent response to a popular, national campaign by 
Apple Computer Corp. featuring names, photographs and testimonials from 
customers who began using Macintosh technology because of frustration with 
Windows. 

In Microsoft's ad volley, an unidentified woman wrote that she jumped to 
Microsoft after eight years as a loyal Macintosh user and boasted that the 
"process of switching was as easy as the marketing hype had promised." 

Trouble erupted after amateur sleuths at a popular technology Web site, 
Slashdot.org, noticed that a photograph showing the woman with a cup of 
coffee was a stock image available for purchase elsewhere on the Internet. 

Other Internet users picked out what few personal details they could find 
hinting at the woman's identity. Unlike the Apple ads, which prominently 
include customers' names, Microsoft's mentioned only that the author was a 
5-foot-3-inch free-lance writer who once rented a Lexus and is married to a 
man who is 6 feet tall. 

Microsoft acknowledged that the writer's anonymity and use of the stock 
photograph contributed to suspicions whether it was making truthful 
representations. Executives pulled the ad Monday but still would not identify 
the author by name. 

"It was an actual customer," spokeswoman Charmaine Gravning said. "We kind of 
figured out that really isn't the best way to go about communicating. We 
decided it was best to point customers to the Windows XP (news - web sites) 
home page." 

Documents accompanying the ad, which encouraged other Windows users to tell 
Microsoft about their experiences, included hidden references to Mallinson's 
name, public relations firm, Wes Rataushk & Associates Inc., and personal Web 
site. 

Gravning confirmed Microsoft hired Rataushk for the ad. 

A spokeswoman from Apple Computer would not comment. 

[because (s)he was laughing too hard to speak?]

Cheers; Leon