Techdirt. Stories filed under "bribes" Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us Techdirt. Stories filed under "bribes"http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Thu, 26 Apr 2012 11:59:00 PDT SEC Investigating Hollywood Studios For Alleged Bribes To China Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120424/23413918641/sec-investigating-hollywood-studios-alleged-bribes-to-china.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120424/23413918641/sec-investigating-hollywood-studios-alleged-bribes-to-china.shtml annual report about the movie market worldwide, it showed that China was a huge growth market. However, now it appears that perhaps some of that growth was the result of Hollywood studios bribing Chinese officials. For years, China has limited how many Western movies can be released in the country. While Hollywood loves to decry all of the "piracy" in China, much of it is due to the fact that the movies can't be released there under the law. That's a situation where the problem is not piracy, nor the MPAA itself (even as it whines about Chinese piracy), but local laws. However, there has been a loosening of those restrictions lately -- and the SEC is exploring whether or not that came about due to bribes from the studios:
The Securities and Exchange Commission has sent letters of inquiry to at least five movie studios in the past two months, including News Corp's 20th Century Fox, Disney, and DreamWorks Animation, a person familiar with the matter said.

The letters ask for information about potential inappropriate payments and how the companies dealt with certain government officials in China, said the person, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the letters.
That said, there is an interesting tidbit in the Reuters article about all of this, that really serves to highlight how ridiculous the MPAA's fight against "piracy" is. It shows that despite the fact that piracy is rampant for Hollywood movies -- once the MPAA was able to get legit movies into the country, people flocked to the theaters. In other words, despite the cheaper pirated options -- or even free options -- people have no problem paying for the legit product when it's offered in a quality fashion:
China's booming middle class is increasingly willing to pay tickets prices for a cinema experience, forgoing cheap pirated DVDs and free internet downloads.
Once again, this seems to demonstrate why the problem is not piracy. If consumers are offered what they want in a reasonable manner, they are more than willing to pay -- and the Hollywood studios seem to recognize this implicitly (which is why they may have bribed Chinese officials to release authorized versions in that market, even with "piracy" being so common).

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]]> open-markets http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20120424/23413918641 Tue, 13 Sep 2011 08:47:38 PDT Reporter Claims TSA Agent Would Speed People Through Security For $10 Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110912/11124015908/reporter-claims-tsa-agent-would-speed-people-through-security-10.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110912/11124015908/reporter-claims-tsa-agent-would-speed-people-through-security-10.shtml cut to the front of the security line for a "tip" of around $10. The actual amount wasn't entirely clear, other than that she got quite upset -- publicly -- when only given $5. Basically, she walked around offering people a wheelchair, which she would use to bring them to the front of the line, the whole time letting them know that she expected something in return.

Of course, the TSA at Newark has a bit of a history of problems. In just the past two years, a TSA agent was arrested for avoiding security. A TSA supervisor was arrested for working with another TSA agent to steal money from passengers, and just a few months after that, another TSA agent was arrested for stealing $500 from a wheelchair-bound passenger.

All of this makes you wonder if the TSA is really making us safer... or exactly the opposite. If TSA agents are looking for the next opportunity to make or steal a dollar, rather than keeping people and planes safe, it would suggest that we've got a problem.

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]]> feeling-safer http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20110912/11124015908 Wed, 6 Apr 2011 08:14:29 PDT Economist Explains Why Paying Certain Bribes Should Be Legal Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110401/17475413738/economist-explains-why-paying-certain-bribes-should-be-legal.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110401/17475413738/economist-explains-why-paying-certain-bribes-should-be-legal.shtml big bribery scandal continuing to unfold in India, it's a bit interesting to see Kaushik Basu, the chief economic advisor to India's Ministry of Finance, make the argument that paying bribes should be perfectly legal. Before you jump to conclusions, you have to realize he's just saying that paying bribes should be legal. Accepting them should remain against the law. As it stands now, both the bribee and the briber are guilty of a crime, and he thinks that's a mistake.
Under current Indian law, Basu writes,
once a bribe is given, the bribe giver and the bribe taker become partners in crime. It is in their joint interest to keep this fact hidden from the authorities and to be fugitives from the law, because, if caught, both expect to be punished.
But if the law were changed as Basu suggests,
once a bribe is given and the bribe giver collects whatever she is trying to acquire by giving the money, the interests of the bribe taker and bribe giver become completely orthogonal to each other.
... In other words, the interests of the bribe taker and the bribe giver are no longer aligned.
The argument is that this way, there's less incentive to actually have bribery, because if someone demands a bribe, you can pay it, but then you can report it and get the person in trouble:
In Basu's world, you pay the bribe and get your refund. Then you go to the authorities and report the clerk who collected the bribe. If the clerk is convicted of taking the bribe, he has to pay you back, and faces additional penalties. You get your money back, and you face no charges.

Of course, the clerk knows that you have this incentive to report him. So, Basu argues, he'll be less likely to demand the bribe in the first place. These kinds of bribes, which Basu says are currently "rampant" in India, will become much less common.
Of course, the link above, to the Planet Money discussion about this, notes that there would be some unintended consequences. Certainly, it wouldn't remove all bribery, as many people willingly pay bribes to try to get favors, and in such cases, this would make the power of those bribes even stronger, since they'd have something to hold over the bribe-taker. To deal with this Basu is suggesting that this idea of making it "legal" should only apply to bribes people are pressured to pay to get something they're legally entitled to receive -- and not for things like a company paying off the government to get a contract. Still, another unintended consequence is that it could increase false accusations of bribery. So it's not a perfect solution by any means, but it is interesting to think about.

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]]> taking-them?-not-so-much... http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20110401/17475413738 Fri, 4 Jun 2010 13:40:03 PDT Microsoft Discovers That Bribing People To Use Its Search Engine Didn't Work Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100604/1203299691.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100604/1203299691.shtml money as an incentive and how it often doesn't work the way people think it should (i.e., money often provides negative incentive -- the opposite of what you would think). I'm actually working on another post about that topic that I'll hopefully finish later today, but here's a quick one demonstrating that point in action.

Way back in 2005, Bill Gates suggested that in the end, Microsoft would be able to beat Google because it had a secret weapon: it could bribe users to use Microsoft instead of Google, by offering them a cut of the advertising revenue. It took a few years, but Microsoft finally turned on that "feature" on a limited basis in 2008, offering cashback for people who bought certain products after searching for them via Microsoft's search engine. Later that year, it expanded the program to regular search. What happened? Not that many people cared enough. Microsoft kept upping the ante, but most people didn't care. They were happy with their Google searches, and even if Microsoft was paying them to use its search engine, it wasn't enough. Well, except for people who figured out how to game the system. But that's not who Microsoft was targeting.

Microsoft has now admitted the program was a failure and is shutting it down. In a blog post about the decision, Microsoft admits that people just weren't that interested:
In lots of ways, this was a great feature -- we had over a thousand merchant partners delivering great offers to customers and seeing great ROI on their campaigns, and we were taking some of the advertising revenue and giving it back to customers. But after a couple of years of trying, we did not see the broad adoption that we had hoped for.
Microsoft admission is quite open and honest, which is actually pretty cool. They don't sugarcoat it. They thought this was something people would like -- as the basic belief that monetary rewards drives activity would suggest -- but found that, in practice, it does not work at all.

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]]> money-isn't-everything http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20100604/1203299691 Tue, 24 Nov 2009 09:12:00 PST Microsoft Tries To Silence Revelation Of Bing Cashback Flaws; Leads To Revelation Of Other Problems Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091114/1839216938.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091114/1839216938.shtml demanded a blogger remove a blog post about flaws in Bing's Cashback offer (Microsoft's attempt to bribe users to search via Bing instead of Google). One of the methods for the cashback offer involved pixel tracking, and blogger Samir Meghani noted that this was easily gamed to post fake transactions to your account. He also noted problems with the way Microsoft used sequential IDs, allowing potential scammers to "deny cashback rebates to legitimate users by using up available order ID numbers." Instead of dealing with these flaws, Microsoft lawyers sent a cease-and-desist and forced the blog post offline. I'm actually quite surprised this hasn't received a lot more attention.

In the legal nastygram, Microsoft's lawyers claimed that because Meghani had tested the flaws out himself, he was likely guilty of violating "various laws relating to computer intrusion, unauthorized access and unauthorized use of information," while suggesting that his actions could result in criminal charges. That's ridiculous, of course. He didn't actually scam the company -- he was just exposing a flaw. This is legal bullying to silence someone for pointing out a rather basic security flaw in Microsoft's program.

But, of course, even though Meghani was silenced on that issue, it doesn't mean he has to be silent on all of the flaws in Bing's Cashback program, so his latest (found via Slashdot) is that various retailers that offer "cashback" via Bing purchases are showing higher prices if you search via Bing. In fact, the price people can pay if they do certain searches on Bing is higher than if they'd gone direct:
So, if I go directly to butterflyphoto.com, I pay $699 with 0% cashback. If I use Bing Cashback, I pay $758 with 2% cashback, or $742.84. Using Bing cashback has actually cost me $43.84, giving an effective cashback rate of -6.27%. Yes, negative cashback! Is this legal? False advertising? I don't know, but it's pretty sketchy.

The problem doesn't end there. Using Bing has tainted my web browser. Butterfly Photo set a three month cookie on my computer to indicate that I came from Bing. Any product I look at for the next three months may show a different price than I'd get by going there directly. Just clicking a Bing link means three months of potentially negative cashback, without me ever realizing it. I'm actually afraid to use their service even just to write this, because it may cost me money in the future. If you've been thinking about trying out Bing Cashback, you may want to rethink that.
Microsoft responded and called this "an isolated instance" that it had missed with its tools that try to prevent merchants from gaming the system this way. Still, perhaps rather than sending out legal nastygrams and PR pablum to people discussing these things, Microsoft should focus on actually making sure that Bing's Cashback bribery program actually works correctly and safely.

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]]> touchy-microsoft http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20091114/1839216938 Mon, 23 Nov 2009 06:06:00 PST Dear Rupert: You Don't Succeed By Making Life More Difficult For Users Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091122/2105397042.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091122/2105397042.shtml silly suggestion from some netheads, and now come reports that Rupert Murdoch is at least in the early stages of considering opting out of Google, with Microsoft paying it to be "exclusive" on Bing. Apparently, Microsoft has actually approached a few publications about doing similar deals. It's no surprise that Microsoft and Murdoch would explore this. Microsoft has experimented for years with programs to bribe people to use its search engine over Google's -- but it hasn't done much to help. Meanwhile, Murdoch continues to not actually understand how the internet or copyright law works, and has some oddly misplaced dislike for Google (despite the fact that Google alone is pretty much what kept Murdoch-owned MySpace alive for years, and Murdoch owns a bunch of sites that aggregate info just like Google).

Still, if this does go forward, it will signal incredibly short-sighted thinking on the parts of everyone who participates. The initial reaction would be significantly less traffic to any site that agrees to participate, considering that Google still drives a ton of traffic to most major sites. Simply giving that up for a chunk of cash is a very risky proposition. Second, in factionalizing the web, it harms everyone. No one wants to have to think about which sites are included in which search engine, and if the battle begins in earnest, then you have a situation where you end up in an inevitable stalemate, with certain sites in Google's search engine, but not in Microsoft's, and others in just Microsoft's but not Google's -- and no one wins. Third, the cost of this program to a company like Microsoft to make it meaningful is huge. It's much bigger than the numbers that were being tossed out before. Finally, all this would really do is open up new opportunities for one of three things (or a combination) to happen (1) a new meta search engine shows up that aggregates both Microsoft and Google results (2) technology hacks that will allow you to combine the two results in one or (3) Google realizes that it has copyright law fair use on its site and keeps indexing sites anyways. I'm not sure Google would take that last step, but if things go nuclear, it might make the most sense.

But the key thing is that none of this does anything to help users. And that's the problem. It's not adding even the tiniest sliver of additional benefit to users. And these days, that's a strategic error. If your business is focused on making life more difficult for a competitor, rather than adding more value to users, you're doing the wrong thing. Microsoft and News Corp. should be trying to provide more value to users, and instead, they seem to be plotting ways to make consumers' lives more annoying and more difficult. They may think that's smart, but in the long term, such strategies always backfire.

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]]> this-will-not-work http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20091122/2105397042 Thu, 19 Nov 2009 14:10:00 PST Would Top Sites Really Opt-Out Of Google Based On A Microsoft Bribe? Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091117/1153526971.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091117/1153526971.shtml Jason Calacanis, Mark Cuban and Tom Foremski all posted similar ideas about how certain sites (such as the top sites in the top search results) could all choose to opt-out of Google and, say, join another search engine like Bing. It's one of those ideas that sounds good for about 5 seconds. And then you actually think about it. First, the numbers being tossed around concerning how much it would cost, say, Microsoft, to convince most of these sites to opt-out of their number one driver of traffic is significantly higher than what's being mentioned in these articles. Many of these sites rely on Google traffic to make a ton of money, and they're not going to throw that away easily. At least in Calacanis' plan he suggests Microsoft offer "50% more than they make in Google referrals" which certainly beats Cuban's idea that many sites would opt-out of Google for $1,000.

Here's the thing, though. Most of those sites worked hard to get to the top of Google for a very good reason: they understand the value of being easily findable. As such, they also recognize that it makes little sense to make themselves less findable at almost any price. Getting anyone to opt-out first (other than suicidal sites like Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.) is going to be nearly impossible. Who would want to risk that? Because the instant they opt-out, someone else would take their place. Quickly. And decisively.

There's value in being found these days, and to be found you need to be easily findable from anywhere if someone's looking for you. Not only would traffic decrease, but so would basic reputation. Even if Microsoft pays you a ton to drop out of Google, people are going to search for your business in Google and when they can't find it, they're not going to care how much Microsoft paid, they're going to think you're a small-time nobody. The best strategy these days, as most web site operators know, is to be as widely available as possible. Opt-ing out of Google because someone pays you some money is a lot more costly than just the lack of traffic.

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]]> doubtful http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20091117/1153526971 Mon, 19 Jan 2009 13:34:00 PST Recording Industry Looking At Bribing ISPs To Side With It Against File Sharing Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090117/1324323448.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090117/1324323448.shtml for the ISPs." That seemed a bit odd, because the ISPs would be spending time trying to crack down on file sharers and would be losing customers. However, now it's becoming clear what may be meant: bribes.

Well, more technically, they're calling it "revenue sharing." Thus, there are reports of ISPs being offered a deal, whereby they have to crack down on file sharing, kicking off file sharers -- but then get a split of any money obtained from music fans who pay up when challenged by an antipiracy company. I'm sure there are some ISPs that would be open to such a thing, but it won't stop a lot of angry users from looking for a more customer friendly ISP. Also, when your whole business model is based on squeezing people who don't have very much money in the first place, it's difficult to see this surviving very long.

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]]> incentives http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20090117/1324323448 Wed, 3 Dec 2008 02:09:00 PST Dear Microsoft: Bribing Users Faster Still Probably Won't Help Much Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20081202/0314242994.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20081202/0314242994.shtml stepping up its program to bribe users to use its search engine, and that process continues with the announcement that Microsoft is adjusting the program to provide the cashback award immediately, rather than making users wait for it. Yet, as PC World notes, this whole effort to bribe users has done nothing to improve Microsoft's marketshare in search. In fact, its marketshare has decreased, as both Yahoo's and Google's marketshare has increased. Perhaps it's time to try a different strategy.

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]]> nice-try,-though http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20081202/0314242994 Mon, 10 Nov 2008 20:39:00 PST Microsoft Steps Up Program To Bribe Users To Search Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20081109/0144342776.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20081109/0144342776.shtml bribe users to use its search engine wasn't getting enough attention, and the company seems to be upping the ante. At least for a little while, it's now giving 25% cash back on eBay purchases (limited to $200). At some point, you really have to wonder how well this program really works. Sure, some folks may use Microsoft's search to get the cashback (or to game the system), but will they keep it up when Microsoft isn't paying? That's not at all clear, and it seems likely that Microsoft could be paying out a lot more than it gets back in benefits.

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]]> pay-up http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20081109/0144342776 Thu, 2 Oct 2008 17:09:16 PDT Microsoft Expands Program To Bribe Users Into Using Its Search Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20081001/2241362434.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20081001/2241362434.shtml bribing users to use its search engine, rather than the competitors'. Back in May, this plan kicked off for certain product searches, where actual buyers would end up getting cash back. But, that's rather limited to a very specific type of search and very limited results. So, it shouldn't come as much of a surprise that Microsoft has now opened up a new program, called SearchPerks, which is an attempt to bribe users to use Microsoft's regular search. Of course, the incentive isn't very strong. It only works in Internet Explorer, and you get a tiny number of "points" each time you search, and you need a lot of points to redeem prizes. It's kind of like those silly carnival games, where the amount of effort you need to actually win enough tickets to get anything makes the whole prospect of participating worthless. Unless, of course, you figure out how to game the system, as many users did on Microsoft's earlier attempt. Still, it's rather telling that Microsoft is still resorting to trying to bribe users to use its search engine. Where are all those people who insisted that Microsoft could beat any competitor at will because it was so big, and all it needed to do was copy them? That doesn't seem to be happening in search.

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]]> when-in-doubt,-bribe-users http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20081001/2241362434