MicrosofMicrosofMicrosofMicrosoftttt’’’’s s s s ““““SSSSCROOGLED!CROOGLED!CROOGLED!CROOGLED!”””” campaign gains momentumcampaign gains momentumcampaign gains momentumcampaign gains momentum

Blog Post Date: February 25th, 2013

Category: Technology made easy

Author: Ulrika Hedlund

Source: http://www.businessproductivity.com/ microsofts-scroogled-campaign-gains-momentum

The past two weeks the media has been filled with articles about Microsoft’s “Scroogled!”

campaign where they accuse Google of invading people’s privacy with their targeted email

ads. In the campaign, Microsoft encourages users to switch over from Gmail to

Outlook.com. By going to the campaign site www.scroogled.com, users can sign a petition

addressed to Google’s Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt, saying, “Please stop reading the

contents of our Gmail to sell ads.” Some experts are saying that this negative campaign,

very common in politics, is hurting Microsoft and that the campaign isn’t gaining traction. In

this week’s article I wanted to give you a better overview of what the campaign is all about

and the current momentum.

An overview ofAn overview ofAn overview ofAn overview of tttthehehehe MicrosMicrosMicrosMicrosoftoftoftoft ““““ScroogledScroogledScroogledScroogled!!!!”””” ccccampaignampaignampaignampaignssss The first phase of the “Scroogled!” campaign was launched at the end of 2012. The

advertisements warned holiday shoppers that searching for products on Google Shopping

would not give you true results – instead of giving you the most relevant search results,

Google’s “pay-to-rank” practice would return products based on which advertiser paid

Google the most. Users were encouraged to switch to Bing that guaranteed true search

results.

The current and second “Scroogled!” campaign was launched February 6th, 2013. In this

wave of the campaign Microsoft encourages people to switch over from Google’s email

service Gmail to their own, newly launched

Outlook.com by informing people about the

privacy risks in Gmail. If you go to the

campaign site, you can read research results

about email privacy, compare Gmail and

Outlook.com and sign the petition. As part of

the campaign, a number of videos have been

posted, showing people who have gotten

their privacy intruded by Google. In one

video you will see an example of someone

who had written an email about their cat

dying where Google targets an ad about a

free pet exam coupon.

MiMiMiMissssleading leading leading leading messagingmessagingmessagingmessaging There are certain elements in the video advertisements that are a bit misleading. For

example, in the videos you can see humans (or cartoons of humans) reading through

personal emails sent to people using Gmail.

This is naturally not the case. Google does not have people employed to read through

customers’ email. They do however use a computer algorithm that scans for keywords in

the emails and Google uses those keywords, along with other information from your

account such as age and gender, to target ads.

GoogleGoogleGoogleGoogle’s response’s response’s response’s response and alternativesand alternativesand alternativesand alternatives Google has issued a statement (which is similar to the text on their support page about

Gmail) that no humans read people’s email:

"Advertising keeps Google and many of the websites and services Google offers free of

charge. We work hard to make sure that ads are safe, unobtrusive and relevant. No humans

read your email or Google Account information in order to show you advertisements or

related information. An automated algorithm – similar to that used for features like Priority

Inbox or spam filtering – determines which ads are shown,” read the statement from Google.

If you want to stop getting targeted ads you can use the HTML view of Gmail or you can

connect another email client to your Gmail account. Another alternative is to pay for an ad-

free Google Apps account for $50 a year.

The target of 100,000 signatures has been reachedThe target of 100,000 signatures has been reachedThe target of 100,000 signatures has been reachedThe target of 100,000 signatures has been reached On February 24th at 10.05 am, the petition against Google reached 100,000 signatures.

The petition, which was launched February 6th, was slow at first and many people doomed

it a failure, but in the past few days, as the campaign has been rolled out internationally,

the number of signatures has increased dramatically. The number of signatures at the end

of February 24th, was 103103103103,,,,874874874874, beating the petition goal of 100,000 signatures.

Is it really a big issue? Is it really a big issue? Is it really a big issue? Is it really a big issue? Some people have no issues with a computer algorithm going through their email; they

prefer to have ads relevant to them. Most email service providers have computer based

algorithms to scan email for keywords related to spam, so some people don’t think this is

very different. Many people however do not approve, and even though Google makes no

secret of their advertising mechanisms, many people are taken by surprise and they are

appalled with this revelation as evident by some of the comments from the people who

have signed the petition. I’m all for relevant advertising, but I believe that people should

have a choice in what information gets used to target those ads. Personally I don’t want my

personal email communication to be a source for advertising so I signed the petition.