"As part of our global non-profit software donation program, Microsoft provides free software licenses upon request to eligible non-profit organizations," Microsoft said in a statement on Wednesday. "As part of that program, [Heartland Institute] requested free software licenses, and Microsoft provided them, just like we do for thousands of other eligible non-profits every year."
The documents, which were leaked to the Desmog blog and published on Tuesday, said that Microsoft donated $59,908 (£38,215) software to Heartland Institute in 2011.
Microsoft has put forward environmental credentials in the past, including a climate change policy statement that said the company sees "an important role for governments to provide the frameworks that spur the transition to a low-carbon economy".
"Microsoft's position on climate change remains unchanged," the company said in its statement. "Microsoft believes climate change is a serious issue that demands immediate, worldwide attention and we are acting accordingly."
Technology organisations AT&T, Comcast, CTIA, and NCTA were also named as donors in the leaked documents.
Part of Heartland Institute's work is to lobby politicians on issues such as hydraulic fracturing (fracking) to extract gas, which may pollute groundwater. Heartland Institute has an environment arm which recently argued "the ethical case for fracking", and warns against "climate change alarmism". The organisation's environment arm claims to send its print publication to "each and every elected official" in the US.
Heartland Institute said that the leaked documents had been stolen in a statement on its website on Wednesday. The organisation said one of the documents that appeared online was faked, and that other documents "may have been altered".
"The stolen documents appear to have been written by Heartland's president for a board meeting that took place on January 17," Heartland Institute said in a statement. "He was travelling at the time this story broke yesterday afternoon and still has not had the opportunity to read them all to see if they were altered."
Heartland Institute said that the "2012 Heartland Climate Strategy" document was a fake. Details of donors were leaked in "The Heartland Institute 2012 Fundraising Plan". The organisation apologised to its donors in the statement.
Heartland said that the documents had been "widely reposted on the internet" and "with no effort to confirm their authenticity". Heartland Institute had not responded to repeated efforts by ZDNet UK to get comment at the time of writing.
Technology organisations AT&T, Comcast, CTIA, and NCTA had not responded to a request for comment at the time of writing. Heartland Institute argues against government regulation of the internet and electronic commerce.
The Charles Koch Foundation said in a statement that its donation to Heartland Institute had been made towards research in healthcare.
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I am 100% in agreement with the reports on climate change, but I have no issues with this. It's important that Microsoft's non-profit program be neutral in most respects, especially given their market share. There are limits such as supporting clear human rights violators, but I don't feel discounted software and support will radically alter Heartland's success rate, nor do I feel like they are getting any benefits other non-profits would receive. I don't particularly like to see funding going toward a program such as this from a personal, ecological, or political perspective, but ethically I wouldn't want it any other way.
Hello Terence,
Thank you for your comment. You're right, one way of looking at Microsoft's action is that it has to be even-handed in its non-profit donation scheme. Another way of looking at it is that the software is an enabler for Heartland Institute's activities - and over $50,000 would have certainly helped oil the wheels of the organisation, so to speak.
@Tom Espiner
Oh come on, Tom, that's a completely unworkable idea. You'd put Microsoft in a position where it would have to evaluate the opinions of hundreds of groups and decide whether or not it supported their cause. And many opinions in those areas are very contentious.
If an organisation is eligible, it's eligible. It's not Microsoft's job to police the opinions of eligible companies.
Hello Jack,
I think you've raised an important point - exactly how Microsoft judges the eligibility of an organisation to receive Microsoft help. I think it *is* Microsoft's job to adequately assess the eligibility of organisations it donates software to, especially if the ethos of the organisation runs counter to publically-stated Microsoft policy.