Microsoft (MSFT), awkward and heavy-handed? Say it isn't so! Rocketboom's Andrew Baron claims that Microsoft tried to get him to agree not to disparage the company or its Zune MP3 player as part of an advertising deal on the popular videoblog. "I have been losing sleep over it and decided this is just not going to be right for Rocketboom," writes Baron on his personal blog, and goes on to confess his undying love for Apple (AAPL) and his feeling that Microsoft had "taken advantage of" him. Browser is trying to get a response from Microsoft; we'll update when we hear back.

Tech blogger James Robertson says that Baron is "'burning [his] bridges' ... dynamiting them, actually." But Robert Scoble disagrees, saying he would have declined the Zune sponsorship deal, too. "You define yourself and your business by the customers you fire," he writes.

Why all the fuss? Microsoft wanted to place a Zune logo on the sites where it advertised, and the logo came with a restrictive agreement, which reads in part: "You may not display the Logo(s) on any site that disparages Microsoft or its products or services, infringes any Microsoft intellectual property or other rights, or violates any state, federal or international law." It's more likely that a hyperactive lawyer rather than a scheming media control freak wrote that contract, but one way or another, Microsoft seriously goofed by sending out agreements with that language to free-speech-minded bloggers.