Historically, the magazine was entirely Internet-based with its journalists living all over the world and filing copy online, though in recent years it has been edited from Incisive Media's offices in London.

[2] Although traditionally a 'red top', under Incisive Media it has put more weight behind its journalism, reducing the number of jibes at companies, and moved instead towards sponsored online debates in association with high-profile organisations, most recently, Intel.

"I attribute being on top of the story to old-fashioned print journalism standards – cultivating, and, if you'll excuse the pun, not burning such contacts," The Inquirer's founder, Mike Magee, told BusinessWeek.

The story was picked up by news media around the world causing Microsoft to admit that monitoring was a necessary part of the process, but denying use of a keylogger.

Ed Bott, writing for ZDNet, accused the site of being "a tech tabloid known for its breathless headlines and factually challenged prose" and said of writer Chris Merriman, "there's little evidence that the author has enough background in computer science or security to tell a keylogger from a key lime pie.