Fear, uncertainty and doubt

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Fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) is a tactic of rhetoric used in sales, marketing, public relations[1][2], and illiberal democracies. FUD is generally a strategic attempt to influence public perception by disseminating negative (and vague) information. An individual firm, for example, might use FUD to invite unfavorable opinions and speculation about a competitor's product; to increase the general estimation of switching costs among current customers; or to maintain leverage over a current business partner who could potentially become a rival.

The term originated to describe disinformation tactics in the computer hardware industry and has since been used more broadly.[3] FUD is a manifestation of the appeal to fear.

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[edit] Definition

FUD was first defined by Gene Amdahl after he left IBM to found his own company, Amdahl Corp.: "FUD is the fear, uncertainty, and doubt that IBM sales people instill in the minds of potential customers who might be considering Amdahl products."[4] The term has also been attributed to veteran Morgan Stanley computer analyst Ulrich Weil, though it had already been used in other contexts as far back as the 1920s.[5][6]

As Eric S. Raymond writes:[7]

“ The idea, of course, was to persuade buyers to go with safe IBM gear rather than with competitors' equipment. This implicit coercion was traditionally accomplished by promising that Good Things would happen to people who stuck with IBM, but Dark Shadows loomed over the future of competitors' equipment or software. After 1991 the term has become generalized to refer to any kind of disinformation used as a competitive weapon. ”

By spreading questionable information about the drawbacks of less well known products, an established company can discourage decision-makers from choosing those products over its wares, regardless of the relative technical merits. This is a recognized phenomenon, epitomized by the traditional axiom of purchasing agents that "nobody ever got fired for buying IBM equipment". The result is that many companies' IT departments buy software that they know to be technically inferior because upper management is more likely to recognize the brand.

[edit] Contemporary examples

Although once it was usually attributed to IBM, in the 1990s and later the term became most often associated with industry giant Microsoft. Said Roger Irwin:[8]

“ Microsoft soon picked up the art of FUD from IBM, and throughout the 80's used FUD as a primary marketing tool, much as IBM had in the previous decade. They ended up out FUD-ding IBM themselves during the OS2 vs Win3.1 years. ”

Although the Halloween documents (leaked internal Microsoft documents ) say that "OSS is long-term credible … [therefore] FUD tactics cannot be used to combat it."[9], in fact Open source (OSS) and the GNU/Linux community in particular are widely perceived as frequent targets of Microsoft FUD:

  • Statements about the "viral nature"[10] of the GNU General Public License (GPL),
  • Statements that "...Linux infringes 235 Microsoft's patents..." before software patent law precedents were established. [11]

[edit] SCO vs. IBM

The SCO Group's 2003 lawsuit against IBM, claiming $5 billion in intellectual property infringements by the free software community, is an example of FUD. IBM argued in its counterclaim, that SCO is spreading "fear, uncertainty, and doubt".[12]

Magistrate Judge Wells wrote (and Judge Kimball concurred) in her order limiting SCO's claims: "The court finds SCO’s arguments unpersuasive. SCO’s arguments are akin to SCO telling IBM, 'sorry we are not going to tell you what you did wrong because you already know...' SCO was required to disclose in detail what it feels IBM misappropriated... the court finds it inexcusable that SCO is... not placing all the details on the table. Certainly if an individual were stopped and accused of shoplifting after walking out of Neiman Marcus they would expect to be eventually told what they allegedly stole. It would be absurd for an officer to tell the accused that 'you know what you stole I’m not telling.' Or, to simply hand the accused individual a catalog of Neiman Marcus’ entire inventory and say 'it’s in there somewhere, you figure it out.' "[13]

Darl McBride, President and CEO of SCO made the following statements as part of what was felt by many in the Linux user community[who?] to be a FUD campaign.

  1. "IBM has taken our valuable trade secrets and given them away to Linux,"
  2. "We're finding... cases where there is line-by-line code in the Linux kernel that is matching up to our UnixWare code"
  3. "...unless more companies start licensing SCO's property... [SCO] may also sue Linus Torvalds... for patent infringement."
  4. "Both companies [IBM and Red Hat] have shifted liability to the customer and then taunted us to sue them."
  5. "We have the ability to go to users with lawsuits and we will if we have to, “It would be within SCO Group's rights to order every copy of AIX [IBM's proprietary UNIX] destroyed,"
  6. "As of Friday, June 13 [2003], we will be done trying to talk to IBM, and we will be talking directly to its customers and going in and auditing them. IBM no longer has the authority to sell or distribute AIX and customers no longer have the right to use AIX software"
  7. "If you just drag this out in a typical litigation path, where it takes years and years to settle anything, and in the meantime you have all this uncertainty clouding over the market..."
  8. "Users are running systems that have basically pirated software inside, or stolen software inside of their systems, they have liability."[14]

The campaign evidently worked, as SCO stock skyrocketed from under $3 a share to over $20 in a matter of weeks in 2003. (It later dropped to around[15] $1.20—then crashed to under 50 cents on August 13, 2007 in the aftermath of a ruling that Novell owns the UNIX copyrights). [16]

[edit] Gaming industry

Video game consoles manufacturers in the console wars uses FUD highly to promote their systems and convince consumers which console is better. An classic example was SEGA marketing campaign with slogan "Genesis does what Nintendont" [17]. In recent years, Microsoft and Sony have become major FUD-spreaders in the gaming press, using impact and misleading declarations about market scenario, hardware reliability and sales. [18] [19]

[edit] Non-computer uses

Main article: appeal to fear

FUD is now often used in non-computer contexts with the same meaning. For example, in politics one side can accuse the other of using FUD to obscure the issues. For example, critics of George W. Bush accused Bush's supporters, most notably the Swift Boat Veterans For Truth, of using a FUD-based campaign in the 2004 U.S. presidential election.[20]

According to some commentators, examples of political FUD are: “domino theory,” "electronic Pearl Harbor," and “weapons of mass destruction”[21]

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes and references

  1. ^ Harris, Rhonda (1998). The Complete Sales Letter Book. Armonk: Sharpe Professional. ISBN 0765600838. 
  2. ^ The term FUD is also alternatively rendered as "Fear Uncertainty and Disinformation". See e.g., Jansen, Erin (2002). Netlingo. Ojai.: NetLingo. ISBN 0970639678.  p. 179
  3. ^ For example, FUD has been used to describe social dynamics in contexts where sales, lobbying or commercial promotion is not involved. Elliott, Gail (2003). School Mobbing and Emotional Abuse. Philadelphia: Brunner-Routledge. ISBN 0415945518. 
  4. ^ Gene Amdahl, quoted in Eric S. Raymond, The Jargon File: FUD".
  5. ^ "Suspicion has no place in our interchanges; it is a shield for ignorance, a sign of fear, uncertainty and doubt." Caesar Augustus Yarbrough, The Roman Catholic Church Challenged, p. 75. The Patriotic Societies of Macon, 1920.
  6. ^ "Again he was caught in a tempest of fear, uncertainty and doubt." Monica Mary Gardner, The Patriot Novelist of Poland, Henryk Sienkiewicz, p. 71. J.M. Dent ; E.P. Dutton & Co, 1926.
  7. ^ Eric S. Raymond, "The Jargon File: FUD".
  8. ^ Irwin, Roger (1998). What is FUD. Retrieved on 2006-12-30.
  9. ^ Open Source Initiative. "Halloween I: Open Source Software (New?) Development Methodology"
  10. ^ Press release from Microsoft which has viral nature of open-source quote
  11. ^ Parloff, Roger (2007-05-14). Microsoft takes on the free world. FORTUNE. Retrieved on 2007-11-04.. Microsoft's licensing chief claimed that specific examples have been given in private, in: Parloff, Roger. Legal Pad, MSFT: Linux, free software, infringe 235 of our patents..
  12. ^ The SCO Group v IBM - answer to amended complaint and counterclaims (Undecided, US District Court - Utah, Kimball J, filed 6 August 2004) Section E, paragraph 22
  13. ^ The SCO Group v IBM - ORDER GRANTING IN PART IBM'S MOTION TO LIMIT SCO's CLAIMS (Undecided, US District Court - Utah, Kimball J, filed 6 August 2004) Section IV, paragraphs 33,34
  14. ^ McBride, Darl. Show Person. Retrieved on 2006-12-30.
  15. ^ SCOX: Historical Prices for SCO GRP INC (THE). Yahoo! Finance.
  16. ^ Investors bailing on SCO stock, SCOX plummets. arstechnica.
  17. ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-2BabwHac8
  18. ^ http://kotaku.com/388781/aaron-greenberg-goes-berserk-bites-sony-in-the-face
  19. ^ http://www.joystiq.com/2007/01/19/ps3s-europe-launch-all-fud-up/
  20. ^ The Anti-Kerry FUD. The Blog That Goes Ping (2004-10-30). Retrieved on 2006-12-30.
  21. ^ Dirty Bomber? Dirty Justice. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, vol 60, no 1, p. 60 (2004-01). Retrieved on 2007-05-14.

[edit] External links


This article is based in part on the Jargon File, which is in the public domain.