Ever since Google announced changes to its privacy policy in late January, Microsoft has been on the offense, running newspaper ads calling out the search giant for selling its users' data and unveiling a video starring "Gmail man" reading through user email. It turns out Microsoft isn't done yet — the latest product to be skewered is Google Apps. In a video called "Googlighting," which is described as "what happens when the world's largest advertising business tries to sell productivity software on the side." The video introduces "Googen Apperson," who applies for a job at a presumably large and wealthy corporation as the provider of office productivity apps. Apperson doesn't seem up to the task, failing to answer some hard-nosed questions about Google Apps' features and convince the executive to switch her company (which "lives on Excel and Powerpoint") to give him a chance.

In a blog post accompanying the video, Microsoft links to a wide variety of other sites that have posted about Google Apps' shortcomings and says that "if these concerns and current revelations about Google's privacy policies have you troubled, this may be a great time to check out Office 365." Microsoft clearly sees the new Google privacy policy as a major opportunity to grab some mindshare back from the company, but it's hard to say if continuously attacking a brand that consumers generally find quite trustworthy with somewhat foolish videos is a strategy for success.



