Net Neutrality Links
I’m adding this link to the Net Neutrality Page.
Whatââ¬â¢s Microsoft Afraid Of?
Reuters reported last week that the Free Enterprise Action Fund – which holds more than 4,000 shares of Microsoft stock – wants the company to explain its rationale for supporting Net neutrality. The fund wants to put a proposal before shareholders, for an up-or-down vote at the next meeting, which would direct Microsoft management to prepare a report ââ¬Åanalyzing the business and economic rationale, regulatory impacts, legal liabilities and any effects on product development and customersââ¬Â of Net neutrality.
Sounds reasonable enough.
But Reuters reports that Microsoft has ââ¬Åasked the Securities and Exchange Commission if it could exclude the proposal from its annual shareholder vote without facing enforcement action by the agency.ââ¬Â
ââ¬ÅWhat is Microsoft afraid of,ââ¬Â asks Tom Borelli, a portfolio manager at the Free Enterprise Action Fund.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Related
NET NEUTRALITY PAGE
Hmm – that reads like a Telco-sponsored concern troll. What Microsoft is afraid of? That one’s so easy to answer it’s laughable – they’re afraid that the telcos will start charging them extra for MSN, their search engine, the already enormous bandwidth bill they’re paying for online updates, and pushing up the prices even more on the already horrendeous bill they’re getting from Akamai for server redundancy services.
In other words, Microsoft doesn’t want to get mugged by Verizon any more than Google does.
In other news, Senator Ted “I have no clue how technology works” Stevens is trying to sneak the telco bill in through the back door by forcing a cloture vote before Congressional recess – see http://www.firedoglake.com/2006/07/31/action-alert-net-neutrality-needs-your-phone/ for details. If that one goes through, well… get ready to pay extra if your blog takes off.
Hi AdLib,
That’s exactly what I was thinking. I don’t know who this group is that’s after Microsoft or why they’re picking on them when they own so much stock. The Free Enterprise Action Fund should be worried about it too. Don’t you think?
Mmm, but then again, who are the Freeper fund people, exactly? According to Market Watch, they’re the stupid Investment of the week”
Andtaking into consideration that “As of April 24, 2006, there were 10,201,202,877 shares of Microsoft common stock outstanding.” The fund owns – what, 4,000 shares?
4 000 / 10 201 202 877 = 3.92110621 Ãâ 10-7
Owning about 0.000000039% of microsoft stock doesn’t entitle you to much of anything – except to get the stock reports in the mail.
But what can you expect from the Cato Institute people? The fund exists to promote lazzes-faire capitalism and to give the general manager another vector of attack on his political opposition disguised as a business question. I think that’s a fairly disingenious and dishonest approach myself, but they obviously disagree…
Oh I misread it by quite a few zeroes. [she blushes] They’re just a pain and bunch of stupid people. I’d do the court thing just for the harassment reasons.
Heh, Microsoft is probably doing it because it doesn’t want to waste the time and money of their actual share holders – 4,000 shares is probably less than what the junior janitor in Redmond has in his employee’s portfolio fund.
You know you’re in alice-in-wonderland territory when the people you’re referencing mentions MoveOn.org but fails to mention Gun Owners of America in the Net Neutrality alliance. Or alternately, you’re in astroturf-the-conservatives land – it’s kinda like the shills over on handsoff, yes?
The freeper fund comes across as the worst kind of concern troll, actually – they buy some miniscule amount of stock and then try to promote their political agenda by acting oh-so-concerned about how their investment is “doing bad business” by not cleaving to their warped notion of free-market capitalism.
Yeah, “the worst kind of concern troll,” I like that a lot. Why don’t people save their worries about things worth worrying about. There once was a saying “Don’t borrow troubles.” I think that applies here.
Oh, being a concern troll is more than borrowing trouble – it’s actively going out of your way to look for it. To quote a wiki entry: “classic “concern troll” behavior – feigning concern to disrupt focus and sap attention.”
The more I consider it, the more it looks like pure astroturf marketing – they’re oh-so-concerned about Microsoft deciding that since their future income will be extremely dependent on not letting Verizon and the rest hold the ‘net hostage, they’re working with anyone else with the same agenda.
The site you’re linking to doesn’t mention the rather unusual sight of Microsoft and Google in alliance – usually the two companies are acting more like they’re in a steel-cage death match.
Which leads me to think that the fund is being concern trolls – they’re trying to disrupt MS’ focus on the future of their company by acting all concerned about the business…
I think you should speak at the next MC shareholders meeting. 🙂
Heh, MS’ is undoubtedly on top of it – I don’t think the SEC will deny their petition to be allowed to ignore someone who holds so little stock their percentage has to be written in scientific notation to be readable…
What’s more interesting is on the meta-level of this- why is the Grand Old Party helping a concern troll shilling for the telcos by highlighting a biased selection of the supporters of Net Neutrality? It reads suspiciosly like the Telcos are big campaign donors, doesn’t it?
Ted Stevens (R-alaska) sure knows who’s paying him, and who he owes his loyalty to, doesn’t he? It’s sure not his voters…
Yeah, I’m much more interested in what’s behind this great smoke screen. How the cable companies want us to pay them for everything.
It’s an interesting mix of politics and business, isn’t it? The telcos are basically trynig to buy legislation that’ll allow them to start a legal protection racket…
“Nice web site you’ve got there – be a shame if people couldn’t read it, eh?”
Yeah, It would be a shame if they had to pay to read it and I had to pay to write it at the very same time.
We already do that, don’t we? My internet connection sure isn’t free, I doubt yours is, web hosting costs money… which brings us back to the same place we’ve been before.
The telcos want to be able to charge extra for delivering a basic utility.
Sort of like the water company trying to charge the coffee shop on the corner extra for the water on the grounds that they’re not just drinking it, but making money from it too.
No-one would stand for that sort of thing – how come the telcos are on the verge of getting away with it?
Because we’re like a bunch of cows.
So you’re trying to be a cowgirl and getting the herd moving in the right direction?
Hmm.
Liz “Cowgirl” Strauss works for me 🙂
Now, there’s an image!
So, can we go to Tombstone for Open Mike Night one of these days? I have a slightly guilty fascination with spaghetti westerns…