Due to overwhelming negative feedback about their new security technology, Microsoft has decided to relabel their much- discussed Palladium technology to the much-more-difficult-to-remember "next- generation secure computing base".

It appears that due to the bad press that the Palladium technology has been getting for its privacy problems, the software giant has decided that they need to change the name.

Whatever your thoughts about the intention of their project, you have got to appreciate this adroit move by Microsoft to make it more difficult to rally against the technology.

Using the inverse of a standard marketing principle which puts easy-to- remember names on abstract or difficult concepts to make them easy to rally around, they have decided to tear down the Palladium name in order to make it more difficult to assail.

Hopefully, for the sake of all of our privacy, it won't work.