Reader Voices: Blacklisting Sony

Do customers hold a grudge against vendors that unfairly restrict usage of their products? Well, it would appear that many of my readers do to the point of blacklisting companies that they think went too far with overly controlling behavior. And by far the top name on the list of never-to-be-forgiven companies is Sony due to the rootkit episode.

This fact was made abundantly clear in the discussion we had (see “All Your Product Are Belong to Us”) in the wake of Apple’s iPhone-bricking shenanigans. As many readers said, customers have to keep track of those who done ’em wrong. “I wanted to share my own response to evil vendors: I permanently blacklist them,” wrote one reader. “I owned a Corvair, and my neighbor owned an aluminum-cylinder-block Vega. I will never consider buying another GM vehicle. They’ve shown me what they’re willing to sell to a gullible public. Have they improved? Are they respectable? I don’t care. In the time since the Sony root-kit debacle, I’ve shopped for and bought a high-end camera and two mp3 players. Sony was not considered. I buy batteries, but I won’t buy Energizer (Bhopal). Didn’t Union Carbide sell the brand to somebody else? Maybe, but they sold my enmity along with it. Gas? I’ll push my car before I’ll patronize an Exxon (Valdez) station. Does my two-bit revenge affect these mighty vendors? Maybe not in any measurable way, but I would feel like too much of a dupe and a tool if I forgot these lessons. By the way, the sin these companies committed was not the initial screwing up, but the failure to ever take responsibility. That’s my benchmark: how do you recover from a failure?”

In our reader poll, many had difficulty choosing the worst offender among Apple, Intuit, Microsoft, and Sony. “That list is like trying to choose between Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot,” wrote one reader. “Sony may be the worst simply because of the ineptness of the software and the repercussion to essentially unrelated areas. I will not buy any Sony brand anything now. Further, I do not believe that the so-called decrease in CD sales is true. There was huge bulge as people replaced prior formats with digital CDs. AFAIK, there have been no statistics released showing lower year-to-year sales of newly recorded material. More than half of my purchased music is material recorded prior to CDs being available.”

But while the other vendors certainly had their share of votes, Sony was at the top of most reader blacklists. “I can assure you I’ve been in the market for a new flat-panel TV, DVD player, and AV tuner and one brand that was immediately off my list was Sony,” wrote one reader. “I’ve been a fan of their home electronics for a very long time but the fiasco of the rootkit on their distributed media made me realize I’d rather not have my money be even associated with that type of corporate behavior. I ended up getting a nice, basic Sylvania plasma monitor and some Denon components to satisfy our home theater bug.”

“The absolute arrogance of Sony to presume it had the right to install software that interfered with the normal use of a computer that did not belong to them is what turned me from a longtime Sony customer to someone who actively avoids their products,” wrote another reader. “My wife and I were recently in the market for a new HDTV and though they have some nice units, we did not even bother considering anything made by Sony. Same with our digital SLR. I want a Playstation 3, but won’t buy one. Why? Because with that single action Sony destroyed all the good will I had for them. My A/V setup has several Sony products (receiver, DVD player, tape deck, etc). When it comes time to replace those products you better believe it won’t be with another Sony.”

Some questioned though whether such vows really have much impact. “I find the rootkit comments amusing,” wrote one reader. “How much did it affect Sony? How about none. Ask an average (non-IT geek) person what they think about what Sony did with the rootkit. Or let me save you the time waiting for the answer: ‘Rootkit? Huh? What’s that?’ Don’t overestimate how these things affect the average consumer.”

“How much did it affect Sony?” responded another reader. “Maybe not much, but every time the company’s products come up for discussion, I remind everyone about the rootkit fiasco. For example, I participate on a number of photography-related forums. Sony has a very impressive new DSLR, the A700. When people wonder out loud whether they should buy one, I casually mention the rootkit episode and ask them: if you buy one, would you want to connect it to your computer? Can’t point to any one person not buying one because of my comments, but I’ve sparked some good discussions about making choices as consumers.”

Sony may pay a price down the road. “Even though I did not get hit myself, I was so irritated at Sony about their root kit that I refuse to buy Sony anything if it can be avoided,” wrote another reader. “Companies with this attitude are a pain. They should remember what happened to Radio Shack and the TRS machines, Word Star, Lotus and others. Users get do not forget. It takes time, but they will quit buying the first chance they get.”

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