August 26, 2009

Microsoft apologizes for racial makeover

U.S. software giant Microsoft said Wednesday it's sorry for superimposing the head of a white man on a black man in a photo on its Polish Web site.

We apologize and are in the process of pulling down the image, The Times of London reported the company said in an official statement. We are looking into the details of this situation.

The picture in question involved a stock image of three businesspeople, one white, one black and one Asian, which could be seen in its original form on Microsoft's U.S. Web site. But on the company's Polish site, the same photo showed the head of a white man superimposed on the black man's body, CNET.com reported.

In this day and age, this is shocking, CNET reported Twitter user Barry McCauley as writing. Unacceptable.

The Times said Microsoft officials wrote on their official Twitter feed, Marketing site photo mistake -- sincere apologies -- we are in the process of taking down the image.