Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Microsoft: "Browse Better" = "Browse Worse; Hide Better"

Microsoft's newest advertising campaign defines a new low in the company's public relations history. Their advertisement "O.M.G.I.G.P" (the elaborated title is a violation of the third commandment, so I'll not be providing it) depicts a wife uncovering her husband's browsing history and becoming violently ill at the sight of what he has been viewing online.

What is Microsoft's solution to a depraved and perverted husband and a sickened wife? Will the folks at Redmond suggest that pornographic sites like the bleeped out URL given in the advertisement are inappropriate? Of course not. Their proposed solution is "InPrivate Browsing." Indulge the darker recesses of your heart, just learn to keep secrets better. Now THERE'S an approach that will strengthen the fabric of our society (not)!

Microsoft's slogan for Internet Explorer 8 is "Browse Better." How Orwellian that this slogan is actually an encouragement for people to browse worse!

21 comments:

Joe Blackmon said...

Yeah, this is as bad and the BK ad with the woman on one side and the burger on the other. If you know what I'm talking about, it's pretty sick. If you don't, just take my word for it.

Wayne Smith said...

Bart,

Looks to me that Microsoft's newest advertising campaign is a campaign for MOZILLA'S FIREFOX!!!!


Wayne

Dave Miller said...

It's hard to imagine a major US company with an advertising campaign designed around helping men hide their pornography. How far we have come!

I was just heading to lunch when I saw this - thanks!

volfan007 said...

Bart,

I told my wife...about 10 years ago...that we'd probably being seeing nudity and sex acts on commercials in 5 years...the way things were going. It's taking a few more years to actually get to that point than what I thought. But, we're bumping up against it now....aint we?

This commercial that you have here is just a sick example of where our society is going.

David

Bart Barber said...

In all fairness, I should note that most major browsers presently have some sort of "privacy" feature in their browsers. Microsoft is merely the first company to make such an explicit commercial advertising this feature openly as a "porn mode" for the browser.

There is a line there. Microsoft has crossed it. As an Apple guy, I'm more than happy to highlight that fact. However, fairness requires me to note that Apple, Mozilla, Opera...everybody, really...is on the same page with Microsoft, although covertly.

CB Scott said...

"Don't be naive. There are difficult times ahead. As the end approaches, people are going to be:

self-absorbed, money-hungry, self-promoting, stuck-up, profane, contemptuous of parents, crude, coarse, dog-eat-dog, unbending, slanderers, impulsively wild, savage, cynical, treacherous, ruthless, bloated windbags, addicted to lust and allergic to God.

They'll make a show of religion, but behind the scenes they're animals. Stay clear of these people.

cb

Brian said...

We're a Microsoft shop, and use IE7 because Windows can update it automatically with WSUS, but we won't be deploying IE8 because it could prevent us from being able to substantiate claims if one employee accused another of violating our appropriate use policy.

Bob Cleveland said...

Deceitful and desperately wicked hearts, acting deceitful and desperately wicked.

And as if right on cue, the Word Verification is remarkably suggestive. How interesting.

selahV said...

Bart, If I didn't know how the end turns out, I could throw-up right now. As it is, I am just nauseous, and will probably remain so until I see Christ face to face. Sorry, I didn't view the video. I know I can take your word for it. selahV

selahV said...

Joe, I saw that BK ad. Fox News showed it on their report. It made me ill. Needless to say, I am writing them about it and will not be eating there, even if the ad is in a foreign country. My daughter wrote a letter to the Arby's for an ad they ran and they stopped running it. For every letter an advertiser gets they count it as 10,000 people who feel the same way but do not take the time to write them. Contacting them directly is a powerful force when it comes to the bottom line.

Don't know that anything can be done about this one with Microsoft. How Bart, do we use these products without aiding and abetting the groups who do it? I have AOL and I've gotten sick of their stuff too. selahV

Joe Blackmon said...

SelahV,

My family ate there (BK) more in the past two months than we had in the past two years because we saw the new Star Trek and LOVED it. So we wanted to get the toys....for the kids. Really**. And then they run an ad like that. No thank you, sir, I'll not have another.

**Tou should see the top of my cube. I've got Old Spock, Young Spoke, Kirk, Scotty, the Enterprise and the Kelvin. I'm such a geek.

Quinn Hooks said...

Man, this is sick.

Brian said...

Did some research yesterday. Was rebuilding an XP system, and IE7 wouldn't install, so I had to install 8. There are registry setting and Active Directory Group Policy settings you can make to disable porn mode.

Bart Barber said...

Brian,

I almost replied to you the other day suggesting that Group Policies would probably allow you to disable InPrivate Browsing, but since I didn't know for certain, I decided to remain silent.

Now, all of you folks out there just need to go purchase a Windows Server 2008 machine to use as a PDC for your home network. ;-)

CB Scott said...

You almost replied??

Well, bless your little heart,....... Bart.

You know I have one (1) day left and you have yet to respond to me on any post thus far.

Brian, Just take what you can get. Bart is as stingy with his responses as he is with his money. And that is tight and I do mean tight, like as a camel going through the eye of a needle.

cb

Bart Barber said...

CB, you know full well that you are so eloquent in your comments as to leave nothing else to be said!

CB Scott said...

Yeah,..Yeah, that's good. Yeah OK. Yeah.

ALL RIGHT! THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKIN' ABOUT!

Excellent response, Bart.

R. L. Vaughn said...

According to this article, "MICROSOFT has bowed to public outcry and pulled from the web an ad rapidly gaining fame as the worst technology commercial ever'."

Thanks for being part of the public outcry, Brother Bart. If not for you, many of us would not have known.

Wes Kenney said...

I found this article, which also says they are pulling the ad. Sadly, though, it appears much of the outcry was over the vomiting, and not over its supposed cause.

CB Scott said...

Wes,

You are right.

At least the woman in the comercial (I know it wasn't real) still had the feminine integrity to vomit.

It is sad, but true that some women are so jaded that they would have simply laughed or said, "Oh well; Boys will be boys."

cb

Brian said...

Bart,

You don't need a domain controller to set group policy. You can set it on non-domain machines computer-by-computer using gpedit.msc

http://helpdeskgeek.com/how-to/disable-turn-off-inprivate-browsing-ie-8/

Doing from a DC just keeps you from having to go set it on each PC individually.

There is also a registry setting to disable it:
1. Open Regedit.
2. The necessary setting is: HKLM/Software/Policies/Microsoft/Internet Explorer/Privacy/EnableInPrivateBrowsing
3. It is a dword setting in which 1 or missing allows InPrivate and 0 disables it.