Sony needs a common-sense czar
With so many czars running around trying to solve the nation's problems in tech, auto and drugs, perhaps Sony should consider hiring a common-sense czar.
Is there any major consumer company around that seems to understand basic customer relations less than Sony? Isn't rule No.1 in the CR manual, "Don't spy on customers?" If so, then rule 1-A must be: "Take extra care to avoid spying on customers' children."
The latest example of Sony's disconnect with the masses came this week when the company's music division was fined for surreptitiously collecting information on children under 13-years old.
On Thursday, Sony agreed to pay $1 million to the Federal Trade Commission for collecting information on 30,000 children without obtaining parental consent. According to the Associated Press, Sony violated the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act when it collected the data from hundreds of fan sites, including those of such musical acts as Kelly Clarkson, Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera.
Sony representatives declined to comment.
Sony's growing list of scandals raises the question of whether anyone at the conglomerate has an ounce of public relations savvy. If they don't, the company should find someone fast and that person's mission should be to smack down overly zealous marketing types who come up with lamebrain ideas like this one.
Or how about the one for last year's promotional party for the PlayStation 2 game God of War II that turned into an international embarrassment for Sony. In keeping with the video game's Greek mythology theme, comely women were hired to prance around topless and feed grapes to partygoers as part of the "theatrical dramatization." If that wasn't over the top enough, the centerpiece of the festivities was a butchered goat that was dressed up to look like the animal's entrails were falling out.
Across the world, animal activists howled and critics blasted the company's "bad taste." Sony apologized and yes, returned the goat carcass to the butcher. (I'm not kidding, that was their response).
Then there was the company's supreme blunder, which also came from the music division.
Before Sony, even some hardcore techies were unfamiliar with rootkits. Now, the two are synonymous. In 2005, Sony loaded MediaMax CD 3 and Extended Copy Protection (XCP) software on music CDs to help boost copy prevention. The software loaded a rootkit malware onto the PC of anyone who loaded the discs. Rootkits are programs designed to hijack control of a computer.
Texas' attorney general filed suit against the company and accused it of loading spyware onto computers. Class action suits were also filed in New York and California. The fallout lasted years.
The rootkit debacle makes this latest child-spying case all the more mind-boggling. Even if you give Sony the benefit of doubt and discount the possibility the company is evil, then what are you left with? Yes, that's right: incompetence.
I have met a lot of smart people from Sony and I have to believe that some of them realize the company is developing a nasty reputation as an enemy of consumer privacy.
Greg Sandoval covers media and digital entertainment for CNET News. He is a former reporter for The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. E-mail Greg, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/sandoCNET. 
It is amazing to me that you are able to hold down a *writing job* when you continually use poor grammar and syntax.
I gots to go now.
"I've got to go now" can be said as "I have to go now".
Oops. I should have say "may be said as"...
Or should I? ;)
AE: Do you have a....? I have a pen.
BE: Have you got a....? I've got a pen.
I love grammar.
That's the bottom line here.
The God of War party? Have you even seen the game? Have you ever read about the history of Greece? Maybe it was a little over the top, but we are talking about a game that was extreme in almost every component. It makes Mortal Kombat look like a tragic comedy, and people are outraged over topless servers and a dead goat? Even worse, there seemed to be more outrage over the goat carcass than the women parading themselves around half naked!
I am so tired of this PC, vanilla, hypocritical, LCD world where I have to fit a *very* narrow mold of everyone's views and morals. So, bah!
The problem is that it's an ethics disaster. The PR disaster is that someone found out - as someone always will.
".....comely women were hired to prance around topless and feed grapes to partygoers as part of the "theatrical dramatization......"
Mobiles are going to rule next decade. Unless we all have to sit at home, out of work, and I finally get a chance to try some game station.
They really need a kick in the arse they also need to stop overcharging for their product.
They think that they are still producing the best of everything (circa 1965-1980). Then their heads got too big and started charging premium prices. They offshored to "other" countries where their quality was no better than anybody else's but still charged the premium price.
Also their warranty service stinks. I will never own anything that has their name on it again.
When I wanted to do a clean install of Win XP on my old Win Me system, I called HP support to see if it were possible. (I wasn't as familiar with computers back then.) The rep sounded like he was in a panic because of my plan. He kept issuing these vague warnings about the "dangers" of doing a clean install. When I tried to get details from him, he couldn't provide any. He sounded exactly like those customer service reps who answer the phone when you are trying to cancel a credit card or magazine subscription. I think the reps get negative points for every customer they "lose".
More significant is the confusion between COPPA and COPA, which is the fault of Congress for giving two Internet-related laws similar acronyms. COPPA is the law at issue here. COPA, which covered the restriction of pornography and other material not deemed proper for minors on the Internet, has been blocked by federal judges.
However, if they are truly interested in saving themselves in a last ditch effort, they need to:
1. Sell off the media business. Then they can focus on technology without worrying about DRMing everything to death.
2. Kill off memory stick and stop developing proprietary $hit. Stick with open standards.
3. Set their prices to be in line with their competitors. Their $hit is made in China just like everyone else's, and their designs aren't worth a price premium.
I stopped buying Sony a decade ago. The last two Sony products I laid my hands on were Sony VAIO laptops that family members gave me to try to fix, but it was hopeless. Sony quality has gone down the toilet.
When I buy electronics, I put Apple, Samsung, Panasonic, and others way above Sony in my shopping list.
- by GroverCleveland December 15, 2008 4:04 AM PST
- It's not a lack of common-sense. It's just arrogance. The mindset is: "we're Sony, and we do whatever we want." You can also see it in the way they try to create proprietary standards and then exact a high "toll" for the product. Blu-Ray is the latest example, but their have been other failures along the way (e.g., a different dvd standard, a different DAT standard, their insistence on Memory Sticks).
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(22 Comments)Bluntly, I avoid their products and I have continued to do so since the rootkit disaster.