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Microsoft Class Action Suit Outcome: Indifference
Ec|ipse writes points out that only about 7 percent of eligible Californians have decided to take Microsoft up on their settlement claims resulting from a class action suit in that state, writing "Microsoft contends that it's because the software giant is so popular with consumers." Eclipse excerpts from the press release on Yahoo! (from Settlement Recovery Center, a company that "helps businesses participate in class action settlements"): "With only two weeks remaining until the January 8 deadline, fewer than one million claims have been filed, out of some fourteen million eligible, for a share of the $1.1 billion fund arising out of the Microsoft class action settlement in California."
Does this mean the people who do bother to file get more money? Looks like they'll be getting about 1200 each at this point.
"I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.
Could it be that so "few" people have filed a claim because of the lack of publicity surrounding the case? I don't exactly see front-page articles in the Los Angeles Times saying to go pick up your money.
How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
What percentage of those eligible are aware of the suit? Of those, how many bother to file it? The claimed 7% seems pretty high as it is. Why bother to file this (spending the time to look for the required paper work, giving away information you may not want to share) only to get a few bucks? It's not worth it. Class action law suits are never worth anything unless you are the attorneys filing it. Those are the only ones making any money out of all this (and absurd amounts at that).
Did it ever occur to them that every time we try signing up for the class action lawsuit, when we hit submit iexplorer.exe gives us a general protection fault? That seven percent must be the Mozilla users.
Why do you think stores offer "mail-in rebates"? Because NO ONE SENDS THEM IN. Or at least a substantially small number as to still be wildly profitable.
People like to think they're getting a good deal, but when it comes time to send in the paperwork, it doesn't happen.
Jerry
http://www.syslog.org/
Not that I'm a big consumer of Microsoft software in any case :-)
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
My state of Missouri decided to "get tough" with Nintendo's price fixing back in the late 1980's, I belive. I signed in for the class action suit and everything. Being young, I had the nievity to believe that this would change things. The state "won," and I got a certificate for $10 off my next game purchase. Wow, Missouri punished Nintendo with a game sale and state-wide advertisments.
The only think that Microsoft didn't manage to do in this case was tie the deal to new purchases; otherwise, it's Microsoft laughing, not rumbles from Mt. St. Helens over there.
Bel, the mostly sane.. "Of course I can't see anything! I'm standing on the shoulders of idiots." -- Me
according the settlement website vouchers will be sent to the consumers who file claims. According to their FAQ, though, the amount of money you recieve depends on the Microsoft product you bought. Here is a list of the products and the amount you would recieve: $16 for each Microsoft Windows or MS-DOS license claimed; $29 for each Microsoft Office license claimed; $5 for each Microsoft Word, Home Essentials or Works Suite license claimed; and $26 for each Microsoft Excel license claimed. If you got these in large quantities, then this is quite a return!
Your math is silly.
You forgot about the lawyers!
So it works out to about 10-14 bucks each.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Doesn't it seem like "exploiting customers by fraudulent means" should carry a heavier sentence than this?
Microsoft has smart lawyers, and California's lawyers apparently rolled over and played dead, after making a good show of pursuing the case after most others had dropped it.
But let's look at this...Microsoft's lawyers negotiated a settlement whereby:
1. claimants have to produce and file an old receipt for purchase of software. (dropoff percentage upward of 75%, for sure)
2. claimants receive a VOUCHER FOR FUTURE PURCHASES of computer stuff. (dropoff percentage at least 50%)
3. claimants have to send all that paperwork to a claim management company to get their real money (dropoff percentage at least 30% -- would be much higher, but any customer who is this far along can be presumed to be motivated...)
and lastly, the icing on the cake:
4. two-thirds of unclaimed funds are donated, by Microsoft, to California schools in the form of computer hardware and software. The software, of course, has zero incremental cost to Microsoft except in lost sales to CA schools, but even more importantly...there is no donation better spent than a donation to kids. Get them early, get them for life.
What ever happened to: "You screwed the plaintiffs over. Make full restitution now or go to jail."?
I qualify under the settlement, but it wasn't satisfaction with Microsoft or simple indifference that made me not file for it. It's the settlement itself. What do I get from it? A paltry $5 off Word, for example, or $30 off the complete Office suite. That isn't even enough to offset the sales tax on those products. And I have to buy products from the same company being punished. They've abused their monopoly position, not to mention been the root cause of most of the virus headaches I have to deal with, and I should add to their profits? Why? If the settlement had involved MS having to give me a discount on competitor's products, I might've gone for it.
Hint: It ain't by the quality of their products. It's by the quality of their PR and legal departments.
Certainly that's part of it, but, as a roving tech support person who talks to folks about new computer purchases, I can say that the MAIN reason that many folks stick with Windows is fear.
They are worried that they won't be able to open stuff they get from friends or work. They are worried they won't be able to buy a certain application or hardware device because their computer won't support it.
They know that there are MANY options. They know they don't need to, for instance, buy Office to exchange Word documents anymore. They know that even though one vendor may not make a printer that supports their computer, there are many others who do.
But they think about these things and get nervous. They think of the disappointment if Grandma can't open the baby videos. They think about the call from the boss about the font change after they just modified a Word document. They don't actually KNOW these things will occur, but they don't dare risk it.
You can call these folks "stupid" or "ignorant," but this is what they think, and they're making buying decisions based on it.
If Nalgene water bottles are outlawed, only outlaws will have Nalgene water bottles.
Unfortunately, it is all in the form of vouchers. (I can't take credit for this, it was pointed out by someone else, earlier.) So, for a single Windows/Office install, someone would get vouchers good toward a minor portion of the next purchase of Microsoft Products.
What is interesting is the effect of the vouchers on the profitability of Microsoft. Two cases are possible when someone is going to use a voucher -
Case 1: Someone uses the voucher to purchase software that they originally would not have purchased: Since fix costs have already been covered and variable costs are so small, the additional purchase results in profit for Microsoft.
Case 2: Someone uses the voucher to purchase software that they were going to purchase, anyway: Since the amount of the voucher is less than the gross margin on the software, Microsoft profits from the purchase, just not as much as they would have if the voucher was not used.
In both cases, Microsoft profits as far as I can see. If more than enough people are in the Case 1 group to offset the reduced revenue due to those in the Case 2 group, it would result in an increase in Microsoft's net profit. Wow, what a way to punish them.
Of course, I could be mistaken about Microsoft's variable costs. It could be that the costs of media, packaging, and distribution are high enough that the discount from the voucher results in a net loss to the bottom line. I seriously doubt it, though.
I live in Arizona, and one day in the mail I got a letter with various information about a class action law suit against Microsoft. I don't know how this law place got my address, nor how they managed to come up with a fake business name for me (EnvisionNET?), but the letter was there. Included were various forms to make a claim, and I was thinking about doing it, then I came across the money part. I can't find my claim forms right now, but I took this off of the website:
"A voucher for $9.00 for each license of Office, Word and Excel (specified in Appendix A-1 of the Settlement Agreement).
A voucher for $15.00 for each license of Windows, Windows for Workgroups, Windows NT Workstation and MS-DOS (specified in Appendix A-2 of the Settlement Agreement)."
I mean, not to sound cheap, but $15 isn't enough to make me run out and file this. Not to mention that Word/Excel/etc usually cost more than Windows, yet the voucher is for less.
This just shows something most geeks are too naive to realize: There exists a huge gap between how geeks see MS and how Everyone Else(TM) sees MS. Call it the "Microsoft Gap".
Had the 14 million people eligible to take a small slice of Microsoft's money all been geeks, I'd say at least 10 million would have claimed the money-- not because they needed it, but simply to hurt, and spite, MS. It would have been a little "death of a thousand cuts" for MS. Instead, we got a lackluster 1 million claiming their slice of the pie. Actually, it's a miracle that even that many people signed on.
Most geeks are too naive to realize just how popular Microsoft really is among the general populace.
To most geeks, Bill Gates is a wily scuzzbag who happened to be in the right place at the right time, applied his incredible business acumen, and now is in a position where his company can milk the general populace for a significant percentage of the cost of a new computer every single time they buy one. He's a robber baron who takes other companies'/peoples' good ideas, bastardizes them, and makes money on them, leaving the original creators to go bankrupt (at worst) or carve out tiny niche markets (at best). Or he just buys them out.
However, to non-geeks (reminder: this covers 99+% of the US population), Bill Gates is a hero and a role model. He is someone that they aspire to be like, due to his incredible wealth and business acumen. The general Party Line among the unwashed masses seems to be "Well, Windows is what everyone runs, so it must be the best." This is rather akin to "every keyboard uses QWERTY, so QWERTY must be better than all other layouts" (e.g. Dvorak). It's also akin to "VHS beat out Beta, so VHS must be better in all ways." Nevertheless, this is how most people in the US feel on the matter.
Until geeks understand how non-geeks think, no progress will be made in educating the public.
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
My beef is that monetary penalties against MSFT just aren't worth it. It's like fining you or me 10cents every time we speed. Big Deal.
.00001% of the population that happens to have this coupon. The customer is *still* giving MSFT money out of their pocket.
Even forcing MSFT to make a version of windows without media player is a joke. Many people are used to using media player, and so many companies have created products counting on the fact that a user will have media player. Big Deal.
What are users going to get out of this? $10 off their next purchase of MSFT software. So now MSFT makes a slightly smaller margin on their software for
The gov't needs to start thinking outside the box, monetary, software reconfigs aren't going to fix it. They need to deal with MSFT like they did with the coal and railroad barons of the early 1900s and with AT&T. The gov't is always trying to put the "djini back into the bottle." We all know its easier to do wrong and beg for foregiveness than it is to ask for permission....
If you are a linux or mac fanboy turn away now.... People can't be aware of the alternatives that do not exist. First off I think it's blindly ignorant to say people aren't aware of Macs. Sure macs can do some things very well, but for most people (not slashdot people) Macs aren't as useful/convienent to them. Linux is even more useless to the average user at its current state (though it has been getting much friendlier to install and wider driver support). Yea, Microsoft's crap may sometimes be buggy and have security issues but at the same time I'll chalk that up to user error. Turn on your firewall, turn on autoupdate, get a virusscanner, stop downloading stupid shit, etc.
I'm sure if the technolgical commoners were invading the linux world, theyd quickly figure out how to fuck that up too. All in all, Windows success has been it downfall, by merit Windows has the greatest compatibility amongst the largest amount of software and hardware out there. I'm sure if a true linux or mac alternative existed, we wouldn't even be having this conversation right now.
Nuclear war would really set back cable. - Ted Turner
The notice I recieved didn't offer cash. It seemed to be offering MS software at reduced prices:
..." - empahsis added.
"... People and businesses that are covered by the settlement can get vouchers that may be redeemed for cash after buying eligible computer products.
You'ld think that MS would be able to look at it's registered users database and simply know who is elegible. After all, some of us who build our own systems have been paying the old MS tax for years, and dutifully registered everything in the faint hope that MS support just might be able to help some time.
I would just as soon the state collected the settlement and reduced taxes a little.
------ The only greater hazard to your liberty than n politicians is n+1 politicians.
In our small company's case, it just did not make economic sense to file this.
MS Windows OS licenses: 5 x $16 rebate = $80
MS Office Suite licenses: 1 x $29 rebate = $29
BSA raid on our company: 1 x -$10,000 fine = -$10,000
Total: -$9,891
I'm guessing there are a lot of other people and companies that this did not make economic sense for either.
At my local (California) community college, one Monday in mid-December, four young men stood outside the cafeteria. They were trying to get people to sign a petition "to help breast cancer research". They were being a little abrasive; people who ignored them were assailed with loud comments like, "Oh, I guess you don't care about breast cancer."
I walked up to them and asked what their petition was about. The "leader" explained that only 1% of people had claimed their refunds from Microsoft's antitrust settlement. He said that he and his companions were working for the antitrust lawyers, who would be paid on the basis of how many people actually collected this settlement money. If I signed certain paperwork, the $100 I was "entitled" to would go to breast cancer research, and I would get a tax deductible donation. "So have you bought any Microsoft products in the past?" he asked.
"No."
"Does your computer have any Microsoft stuff on it?"
"No," I replied. "I use Linux."
"Ohh, Lanux," he replied knowingly. He tried again: "Have you even used anything from Microsoft?" He reminded me I didn't need documentation.
At that moment, a middle-aged woman walked briskly up to the table. "I do NOT appreciate what you said to my daughter!" she said.
"What?"
"She couldn't sign your petition--because she's only 16. And you said, 'Bad karma, I hope you get breast cancer'!"
I left the table and walked over to a young woman standing a few yards away. "Did they actually say that?!" I asked.
"Yes," she said, tears in her eyes. "I can't sign that, because I'm not old enough. And they said, 'Bad karma, I hope you get breast cancer.'"
"That's terrible," I said. Her mom came back to us, snapped, "Let's go," and they did.
I left for class. As I did, I heard a young-ish female student trying to score points with the petitioning males: in a catty, loud voice, she remarked, "Gosh, some people are soooo easily offended."
If aspiration is a virtue, achievement cannot be a vice.
As a matter of fact the car comparison is pulled from a Californian talk show (can't remember which one), that said that there was the lowest rate of car returns ever. Besides, for alternative OS saturation, I haven't seen a single Apple store in my county. And it's not exactly far from everything or unpopulated. As I said, I'm talking about southern california, not northern california. And I wonder why I'm even answering an anonymous coward.
---- I am certain of only one thing : I know nothing else.
From the site: People and businesses that are covered by the settlement can get vouchers that may be redeemed for cash after buying eligible computer products.
Yeah, that's right. You can get up to $100 in REBATES. You will not end up with a net gain of $100, you will just get $100 off some crap that you probably wouldn't have bought had you not been given some stupid voucher and felt the need to use it.
Kudos to Microsoft for fooling the courts into such a meaningless penalty.
Not only does it crash some versions of explorer, but all the version of mozilla, firefox, konqueror, elinks, and lynx that I've tried fail to see the pdf link at all.
Nothing like an organization created to punish microsoft for monopolistic business practices that forces claimants to use a recent version of microsoft software to download their claim forms.
On a side note - here's an example of super nifty web design at its absolute worst. Instead of just making a plain old html page with links to a plain old pdf file, they've gone scripto-nutso and spent days designed a sophisticated document delivery system that fails at the single most basic task for which html was designed. Their web design team ought to be taken out in the woods and beaten to death with a stack of javascript manuals.
I started to fill out the forms. My responsibility to participate & all that, but when I saw the amount of required personal information, I was done. I realize that this is routine for a class action settlement, but I'd never trust MS with this information because they aren't trustworthy.
Look at what these people will do to ensure that they don't lose (I think forging evidence to present to a judge is pretty damned scary.) I would bet a tidy sum that all this personal data won't just be filed & forgotten. Perhaps a small army of private investigators can make some kind of profitable use of this data.
Claimed your windows rebates? You could be a candidate for an extended series of personal salescalls, (the kind that include your boss's bosses or clients) or maybe there's a list of consultants that they "cannot recommend." Simple to just pass it on to their strong-arm organization the BSA. Ready for an audit?
Although I exaggerate, one thing is certain: MS does not have more respect for me than for the law or federal judges. Thus, I will not do business with them.
Finally, and more generally: Who would _choose_ to enter into a contract with an entity that is both hostile & tremendously powerful? A friend with his own business refuses to take orders from government entities for similar reasons.
Ever heard of what it's like to do business with Wal-Mart, or better, what happens to a restaurant that becomes a hangout for mobsters? The owners think that the mob will take care of them, but it's cheaper to just drive them out of business & then find another place to go eat free.
Assembly is the reverse of disassembly.
... is that most of the people who are even aware of this class action lawsuit are thinking ``Oh, great! Just what I need: a check for $50 or voucher from Microsoft for some more of their buggy software''. At that point they decide that the suit isn't worth the effort to track down the receipt for the PC/software and, from there on, their brain's ``waste of my time'' filter kicks in whenever it's mentioned.
Now if it turned out that you'd get a full refund of the retail price of your MS software plus, oh, $100-$200 for every time your PC had to be rebuilt from scratch due to the swiss cheese nature of their OS/application security, then it starts becoming worthwhile to join in on the suit.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M