[pcx66]

Wow, didn't expect they were selling merchandise. This is a new low even for Microsoft. Microsoft were never considered to be a company which puts ethics over money, and this just shows that they are jealous. They would do worse if they were in Google's place.

But selling merchandise? Come on, really! Is there at least one person in the world who could use these items and make it seem like they are making a fair point?

[criley2]

Jealous? To me it shows aggressive brand management. I've never really seen Microsoft as a company above ribbing on competitors. Why is it even a bad thing? Apple did it against PC for like a decade.

[meowface]

Most aggressive marketing/brand management generally doesn't involve selling products saying "[competitor] is bad and evil!!!"

Commercials sometimes, sure, but not wearable merchandise. I think it makes Microsoft seem quite petty, especially since they're trying to coin a whole new word out of it ("Scroogled").

[pcx66]

Apple had a point, that they were cooler. They were saying, "hey, we are different". How does what Microsoft's saying about Google not apply to it? MS doesn't care about your privacy any more than Google. With the Snowden revelations and all, they have no case to make.

[criley2]

I disagree. Microsoft is a company who makes most of their money selling software, and hardware and services play a small part. They do almost no advertising.

Google is a company who derives about 99% of its revenue directly from its advertising business, of which utilizing user data from free services is the crux of the data-based approach that drives their success.

It seems like false equivalence to me. Same reason why I trust Apple way more than Google with data. Because Apple makes all their money on the hardware, not on the future use of your data for advertising purposes.