Microsoft Corp. has landed in the Wikipedia doghouse after it offered to pay a blogger to change technical articles on the community-produced Web encyclopedia site. ... Brooker said Microsoft and the writer, Rick Jelliffe, had not determined a price and no money had changed hands — but they had agreed that the company would not be allowed to review his writing before submission. Brooker said Microsoft had never previously hired someone to influence a Wikipedia article.

Apparently, they were trying to counter information on open-source standards that they believed had been contributed by IBM. We’re used to seeing political strategy played out on Wikipedia by this point, but this is the first time that hired corporate warfare by a Fortune 500 company has been documented.