Microsoft Drags Feet with Settlement Claims

An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft is holding up compensation claims from a quarter of million Californians in order to punish Lindows.com, and to coerce the class action plaintiffs 'into siding with Microsoft against its Lindows competitor,' according to a court filing seen by The Register. The document, filed on 21st November by Townsend and Townsend and Crew, lead counsel for the Californian class action consumers, points out that none of the claims being held up was actually filed via Lindows.com, yet Microsoft has held them 'hostage' for over two months."

Comments

I don't feel sorry for them

[Prof. Pi]

The fact is, it does encourage people to make up phony claims

Just desserts. Microsoft has made a habit of making phony claims against people for years. What do you think happens if their hired goons, the BSA, pull an audit on your company and your sysadmin can't produce all the requisite documentation to "prove" they had a "right" to use the software on every single machine found? Will Microsoft's henchmen say, "oh well, I'm sure you bought them all properly; we understand it's a pain to keep all this paperwork for things that cost just a hundred dollars"? Yeah, right.

The only bad thing about false claims is that if the total claims exceed the settlement limit, then the people with real claims will get smaller amounts, if I understand the settlement correctly.