50 replies to this topic 1 votes

[randomnut]

AFTER LINGERING Prime Minister Toby Blair effectively told the two million-odd road tax epetition-signers to go boil their sumps, another campaign popped up on the government's toy website.

This one demands that Blair "bring pressure on Microsoft for the huge difference in prices between the UK and the US".

The petiton claims that, in the UK, a "full copy of Vista Ultimate would cost you £350, in the US it would cost you £195. The US version of Vista is exactly the same as the UK version. There is no difference".

Why should Microsoft expect us to pay more than the Yanks, the petitioner wants to know.

"I ask people to sign this petition in the hope that the Prime Minister will bring pressure to bear on Microsoft over their pricing as it is my belief they are simply overcharging the people of the UK and therefore are ripping us off."

The petition has currently mustered 142 signatures

Petition

Source

[Inplode]

yawn online petitions are a joke

[*John*]

Inplode, on Feb 22 2007, 12:58, said:

yawn online petitions are a joke

If you are seriously comparing an average online petition service like http://www.petitiononline.com to the UK Prime Ministers official petition service; a service that had Prime Minister Tony Blair e-mailing an official response to over 1.7 million people just two days ago, then you either lack the ability to understand what all this is about, or you just havent clicked the links or made any effort to find out whats going on before posting tbh

[insomniac9]

I've just signed it. No matter what country your in you should be paying the same amount.

[red.]

why just stop at vista? there's plenty of other things (like computer games and consoles) that cost more here than they do in other countries.

[randomnut]

Obviously, but let's not jump the gun. The government will dismiss it as us wanting them to ditch the whole tax system, at least on this one they have all the specifics for one of the worst cases.

[saxondale.]

Signed. Although the OEM prices are quite good...

[red.]

Yes i suppose. I signed it even though i know it's not going to affect anything. If they do decide to do something about Vista wouldn't it also have to apply to other thngs? Otherwise it would just look like they're picking on Microsoft.

[WelshBluebird]

its not going to make much difference IMO, as only yesterday No. 10 dismissed a petition on the site which asked for DRM to be banned.

As I said in the comments on the front page, I've signed it, but the peition is maybe a little unfair, as it ignores VAT. The price advertsied in the UK includes VAT, whereas in the USA, taxes are not includes in the price shown. Also, we pay more VAT than the US customers do. However, even if we ignore VAT, we still pay more than people in the US do. Add to that Gate's pathetic excuse: - "I've lost track of currency rates".

[Noveed]

I signed it, hopefully more people follow suit, if the petition gets substantial signatures then i see something coming of this, the PM isnt just some ignorant little git the way he sometimes comes accross to be

[nik louch]

Quote

If you are seriously comparing an average online petition service like http://www.petitiononline.com to the UK Prime Ministers official petition service; a service that had Prime Minister Tony Blair e-mailing an official response to over 1.7 million people just two days ago, then you either lack the ability to understand what all this is about, or you just havent clicked the links or made any effort to find out whats going on before posting tbh

The 10 downing street petitions are still just a joke. They stock political-bs that was sent as a reply shows how "seriously" they are taken! Not at all!

[markjensen]

Frozen Vista, on Feb 22 2007, 07:07, said:

Inplode, on Feb 22 2007, 06:58, said:

yawn online petitions are a joke

If you are seriously comparing an average online petition service like http://www.petitiononline.com to the UK Prime Ministers official petition service; a service that had Prime Minister Tony Blair e-mailing an official response to over 1.7 million people just two days ago, then you either lack the ability to understand what all this is about, or you just havent clicked the links or made any effort to find out whats going on before posting tbh

Inplode is right (at least on a fundamental level). While they aren't really completely "a joke", online petitions and 'vote your support' sites are too subject to fraud and manipulation to have a lot of value.

Just like paper-n-ink letters sent to your government representatives carry much more weight than and email, a physically signed petition carries more significance than online polls.

[Nicholas-c]

very, very good idea, but the goverment doesn't listen to a word

[MR.T]

Isn't one of the reasons why goods are more expensive in the UK because of the much higher taxes on everything?

[Nicholas-c]

no taxes still wouldn't double the price of vista even with taxes, taxes are only 17.5%