Boy, is the blogosphere ever a buzzin’ over MSN Spaces’ policy of not allowing yourself to label yourself with inconvenient words like “Freedom” or “Democracy”. Although I profoundly disagree with Scoble on this one, you gotta respect him for sticking his head out of the trench under heavy fire (here and here). Look, there’s nothing in the basic workings of the free market, nor in U.S. legislation, that says MSN can’t be Beijing’s bitch to buy some bloggers. But remember, it is a free market, on this side of the Pacific. So first, I suspect there’s a lot of people—the kind of creative, independent-minded people that Microsoft needs—who’d generally rather not work at a company that does that. And second, there are a lot of other people who’d prefer to avoid buying products from one. [Update: I’m getting pushback because it’s been claimed that Sun sells some of the gear in the Great Firewall. If true (and it’s believable), that’s sad. It feels quite different to me from pro-actively suppressing the use of the words “Freedom” and “Democracy”; but make your own judgment. Anyhow, read the disclaimer at your right; it’s me, not Sun, that’s talking.]
