Microsoft is skewering Google again with scathing ads that say as much about the dramatic shift in the technology industry’s competitive landscape as they do about the animosity between the two rivals.
The missive being launched Tuesday marks the third phase in a 5-month-old marketing campaign that Microsoft derisively calls “Scroogled.” The ads, which have appeared online, on television and in print, depict Google as a duplicitous company more interested in increasing profits and power than protecting people’s privacy and providing unbiased search results.
This time, Microsoft is vilifying Google for sharing some of the personal information that it gathers about people who buy applications designed to run on smartphones and tablet computers powered by Google’s Android software. Earlier ads have skewered Google’s long-running practice of electronically scanning the contents of people’s Gmail accounts to help sell ads and attacked a recently introduced policy that requires retailers to pay to appear in the shopping section of Google’s dominant search engine.
“We think we have a better alternative that doesn’t do these kinds of nefarious things,” said Greg Sullivan, Microsoft’s senior manager for Windows Phone, the business taking aim at Google’s distribution of personal information about buyers of Android apps.
Microsoft’s advertising barbs could potentially backfire. Even as they help draw attention to Google practices that may prod some consumers to try different services, they also serve as a reminder of Microsoft’s mostly futile – and costly – attempts to trump its rival with more compelling technology.
“It’s always the underdog that does negative advertising like this, and there is no doubt that Microsoft is now the underdog,” said Jonathan Weber, who has been following Microsoft’s “Scroogled” campaign at search consulting firm LunaMetrics.
On the flip side, Google has evolved from an endearing internet startup to an imposing giant running web and mobile services that vacuum intimate details about people’s lives. Despite repeated management assurances about respecting personal privacy, Google has experienced several lapses that have resulted in regulatory fines, settlements and scorn around the world.
Microsoft’s latest ads revolve around concerns already raised by privacy watchdogs. Critics argue that Google hasn’t adequately disclosed that customers’ names, email addresses and neighbourhood locations are routinely sent to the makers of apps sold in Google’s online Play store.
At least one group, Consumer Watchdog, has complained to the Federal Trade Commission that Google’s apps practices represent an “egregious privacy violation.” Citing agency policy, FTC spokesman Jay Mayfield declined to comment on whether the complaint has triggered a formal investigation.
Google says it shares a limited amount of personal information about customers to ensure they get better service and faster responses if any problems arise. The company says the practice is allowed under its terms of service – a document that most people rarely read in its entirety.
Microsoft says it doesn’t pass along personal details about customers buying apps for devices running its Windows Phone software. But there aren’t as many Windows Phone users or apps for that system as there are for Android.
Microsoft developed its anti-Google ad campaigns shortly after hiring former political operative Mark Penn in August as a corporate strategist who reports directly to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. Penn is best known as a former pollster for President Bill Clinton and a campaign strategist for Hillary Clinton’s unsuccessful bid for president in 2008.
Microsoft isn’t saying how much it is spending on these ad campaigns beyond saying the amount will run in the “multimillions” of dollars.
Though there isn’t any evidence that the ads have hurt Google yet, the company says about 117,000 people have signed Microsoft’s online petition protesting Gmail’s ad-driving scanning of content. That’s a sliver of the more than 425 million Gmail accounts worldwide. Microsoft says about 4 million people have visited Scroogle.com, the website that serves as the hub of the company’s anti-Google screed.
Although the attack ads are something new for Microsoft, denigrating the competition isn’t. Most notably, Microsoft tried to undermine web browser pioneer Netscape Communications beginning in the mid-1990s. Most of that sniping remained behind the scenes until a U.S. Department of Justice investigation into Microsoft’s business practices exposed the cut-throat tactics deployed to overcome Netscape’s early lead in the web browser market.
