The Microsoft acquisition hoax is a bogus 1994 press release suggesting that the information technology company Microsoft had acquired the Roman Catholic Church. It is considered to be the first Internet hoax to reach a mass audience.[1][2]
The hoax comprises part of a cycle of "Microsoft jokes" in which Microsoft Corporation is portrayed as a wealthy but evil monopoly built on bloated or unreliable desktop software, planned obsolescence of products, corporate takeovers of once-innovative rivals and litigiousness. While multiple books have been devoted to the subject,[3][4] the jokes most commonly circulated online as Internet memes.
^Boese, Alex. "Microsoft Buys the Catholic Church". Museum of Hoaxes. Retrieved 2010-11-05.
^Heyd, Theresa (2008). Email Hoaxes: Form, Function, Genre Ecology. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. p. 4. ISBN 978-90-272-5418-4. Retrieved October 30, 2010.
^Barry, Tim (2002). The Totally Unauthorized Microsoft Joke Book. IT Press. ISBN 9780966741711.
^Pogue, David (1997). The Microsloth Joke Book: A Satire. Berkley Books. ISBN 9780425160541.
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