Something for those who have followed the misdeeds of "don't be evil but help a Goolag" Google, ye olde search merchants Yahoo! and every geek's favourite bogeyman Microsoft. The upcoming conference for the Green Party in England and Wales will consider a motion for the party to boycott these three companies.

Citing the cases linked to above, the motion (p.36 of the agenda) calls for the party to stop using Yahoo! Groups, to remove the Google search facility from all national and local web sites, and to continue a policy of moving away from Microsoft's software towards free software. It will be interesting to see if it passes, and what the final version looks like!

For those unfamiliar with the Green Party's position on these matters, it's worth remembering that the Greens provided a huge amount of support in the fight against software patents in Europe. Across the world various national parties and youth wings run campaigns or have policies dealing with free software, DRM and other "geeky" issues. It makes me proud to be a party member, and it's good to see relatively mainstream parties recognising the importance of these issues! I wonder which other parties are addressing them in a similarly high profile manner?