Good evening ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Fourth Annual Golden Turkey Awards.
As usual, our goal is to celebrate individuals and entities that don’t, won’t or can’t come to grips with reality, maturity, ethical behavior or social responsibility because of their blindness, self-imposed ignorance, thinly veiled political agenda, rapaciousness and greed, or blatant desire to return us to the Dark Ages. Without further ado, here are the targets of our righteous anger, barely concealed wrath, withering opprobrium and general disgust:
Contender 1: Sony BMG. Following its nomination in last year’s Golden Turkeys for the digital rights management (DRM) fiasco, I had reason to revisit the company’s sins in December last year. The company was accused of fraud, false advertising, trespass, violations of state and federal statutes prohibiting malware, unauthorized computer tampering, and violating software copyrights as well as violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Alas, by June the furor was pretty much over. Being the artful dodger it is, Sony BMG’s punishment was a hefty financial slap on the wrist. Ah, the benefits of friends in high places.
Contender 2: Cingular. If you were an AT&T Wireless customer, the last year has been awful because the acquisition by Cingular meant that you became, in cellular terms, a second-class citizen. Cingular rode roughshod over the rights of their acquired customers and in the press there was nary a murmur. Did the FCC give a damn? No.
Contender 3: HP. How the mighty have fallen. A whirlwind of scandal, wrongdoing and incredible childishness has made one of the networking world’s power players look like a hangout for spoiled, capricious, unprincipled children. The wave of resignations and legal fun and games provides a remarkable insight into the arrogance of people who apparently think their corporate power is some kind of armor against reality.
Contender 4: Novell. In bed with Microsoft! Bizarre. We can conclude that whatever Novell stood for is merely a memory. Worse still, its financial dealings with the dark side may well have set the fate of SUSE Linux to become just an interesting historical footnote.
Contender 5: The Social Security Administration. Last year I nominated this group for the gross exaggeration of my mother-in-law’s death. I nominate it again for making it so hard for her to be resurrected that it didn’t happen until June this year.
Contender 6: Microsoft. Three words: Vista, late, still.
Contender 7: The Clean Port 80 (CP80) Initiative. This ridiculous attempt to clean up the Internet is, thankfully, gone and not missed.
Contender 8: VirginMega and the French competition commission. The commission failed to force Apple to open its proprietary DRM system, FairPlay, because the main complaint brought by VirginMega was found to be groundless even though the commission “admitted . . . that the lack of compatibility between rival music services and players did put consumers at a ‘disadvantage’, but that fact was beyond the scope of its enquiry.” How wussy can you be?
Contender 9: All of the spammers, phishers and scammers out there. Specifically the idiots touting over-the-counter stocks, any bozo who subscribes me involuntarily to his pathetic newsletter, and the Domain Registry of America.
So, ladies and gentlemen, those are my nominations, what about yours? Which people, organizations and corporations have enraged, disgusted and appalled you since last Thanksgiving?
