You’re not supposed to see this video. Unless you work at Microsoft.
It’s a fake Chrome ad that’s part of Microsoft’s ongoing “Scroogled” campaign against Google, but it was supposed to remain internal.
It appeared first on a blog called iCosmoGeek and has now been picked up by the Los Angeles Times. The Times says it has confirmation from Microsoft that the video was made for internal purposes.
The video plays up many of the same charges that Microsoft has been making throughout the Scroogled campaign — tracking users to target ads, not respecting users’ privacy and so forth. Here’s the heart of Microsoft’s message from the video:
“Google watches everything you do — where you are, who you call, what you search, what you watch, contents of your email, contents of your chats, who your friends are, what apps you own, what you buy, what you listen to — and uses it to make a profit off of you.”
The video is a parody of Google’s recent “Chrome: Now Everywhere” ad.
Microsoft launched its Scroogled campaign last November with an initial focus on Google’s pay-for-inclusion shopping search results, and later targeted privacy in Gmail. The campaign has included print and TV ads, a number of which we shared back in March — coincidentally, in an article about how Microsoft was putting an end to the ad buys.
The two companies butted heads again recently over the YouTube app for Windows Phones. During his keynote comments at Google I/O on Wednesday, Google co-founder Larry Page told the audience, “we struggle with people like Microsoft.”
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