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Microsoft Sued Over WGA

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the phoning-home dept.

Hope Thelps writes "The Seattle PI is reporting on a lawsuit being brought against Microsoft in response to their WGA spyware. Groklaw is also covering the story. Although there are a lot of similarities to Sony's rootkit, the actual harm done is less concrete. It'll be interesting to see how this turns out."

12 of 460 comments (clear)

  1. Interesting... by Utopia · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Sued by the same moneymonger who sued Sony.

    1. Re:Interesting... by CastrTroy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Frankly I don't care who's suing them. I hope that many people jump on the bandwagon to sue them. I would like to see them fight it out to the end, instead of taking a settlement. I want a verdict against Microsoft. Something that stops them or other companies from doing things like this in the future. However, most people are only after the money, and hence will just take a settlement. Nobody is in it because they think MS is a bunch of assholes and should pay.

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
    2. Re:Interesting... by Atraxen · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Personally, I'm more interested in seeing justice served than a particular outcome (i.e., Microsoft getting slapped). That's how the game is supposed to work. If we don't like the outcome, we need to examine the rules. Calling for particular outcomes against someone because you don't like them/their approach to X/their politics is the root of partisan politics/hackery, and so (while you may agree with what I'm saying broadly, but were speaking from frustration with MS), I'm calling you on it.

      --
      Be careful of your thoughts; they could become words at any minute...
    3. Re:Interesting... by tomstdenis · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The problem is all these measures MSFT takes hurt legitimate users.

      For instance, I recently acquired a work laptop that had to be re-imaged. The laptop came with a WinXp Pro license but it was from an OEM [Fujitsu]. Now I don't have the Fujitsu CD anymore so I used my own XP Pro cd. Guess what happens? It won't let me activate it. I had to call MSFT and explain to them [after doing the 10 6-digit number thing TWICE] that I was a legitimate user who had to use generic install media.

      I bet you there are scores of similar people who fight against the anti-piracy stuff to use software that they did indeed pay for.

      Besides, if MSFT is dropping this that and the other thing from Vista, maybe they don't have time to be messing with DAILY WGA updates? How about they use my hard earned money to improve the damn OS and not try to lock paying customers out of it.

      Tom

      --
      Someday, I'll have a real sig.
    4. Re:Interesting... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Thing is - why is this so bad? You don't think a company has a RIGHT to defend their product and protect their interests?

      The problem is, it doesn't help prevent piracy much really. It stops a few of the people who just don't really know what they are doing (say someone who had their PC upgraded by the kid next door or something) but that's about it. The real pirates have a myriad of ways of going around such a thing, not the least of which being to simply not ever use it or to use a hacked version of it. In the grand scheme of things, the only thing WGA has really achieved is to cost MS a bit more to deploy it than they've gained on those few people who actually bought legitimate copies because of it and annoy everyone (not just pirates, but, legitimate users as well.)

      Ya know, if no one out there in the world pirated software, I betcha this stuff wouldn't be in...
      Yeah, and if everyone drove slowly those speed limit signs wouldn't be up. We're humans, not robots.

      But hey, guess the obvious is too easy for retards like you to see...bet you run illegal copies of software too.
      Obvious? Yeah, uhm, I looked at the timestamps, and this post came before yours:
      Amen to that! Maybe someday Microsoft will realize that WGA doesn't prevent piracy; it's just another thing to annoy legitimate users.
      What's obvious to most of us "nerds" is that it has caused a lot of problems for a lot of people, violated privacy, and just in general been an annoyance whether you have a legal copy or not. If you had read any of the previous articles on the subject of the WGA, you would see quite a number of stories where someone has had to deal with the WGA determining that their 100% legitimate copy was illegitimate and they had to go through a long hassle with microsoft to get a new key and everything to get it to work. But, I guess that's only obvious to us nerds.

    5. Re:Interesting... by killjoe · · Score: 5, Insightful

      When you are trying to get money from a large corporation you are a moneymonger. When you are trying to get money from consumers you are a capitalist.

      --
      evil is as evil does
  2. Waste of time by p!ssa · · Score: 5, Insightful

    whoopie, M$ loses and donates another $1,000,000.00 worth of software to some high school system or third world country as retribution (at a cost of about 35 cents to the evil empire).

  3. Hopefully.... by meh13579 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    win or lose this will deter Microsoft from using wga to shut down any unlicensed (or otherwise) computers...for a while at least.

    1. Re:Hopefully.... by bcat24 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You don't. You do need a license to run Windows on that computer, though. (Yeah, it sucks, but it's true.)

  4. Major Spware Argument by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What peeves people so much about WGA is that MS pushed it out as a Critical Update, meaning that all machines with Auto Update install it without prompting. It is undeniably not a critical security update and to make matters worse it phones home. After taking some heat, MS then conceded that the installation of WGA will be optional (if by optional you mean selectively blocking some non-critical updates). It's still being pushed, but you don't have to install it. For those of you with your less than legit copies worried about not receiving updates, you can always download third-party update packs if you don't mind a bit of a delay. Not necessarily a bad thing considering that MS has been known for having to patch their patches. I'm not an MS fan, but not a huge hater. Just a strategically stupid time to ramp up WGA after the whole rootkit fiasco. I'm not an MS fan, but not a huge hater. Just a strategicly stupid time to ramp up WGA after the whole rootkit fiasco.

  5. Re:How is this evil at all? by Zarel · · Score: 5, Insightful
    By your typo, you just answered your own question:
    Scenario: Copy is licensed
    Microsoft Server: Let's see... nope, this one's pirated.
    Computer with WGA: Well then.
    Computer with WGA: Hey $username, you don't have a legitimate license. Please go buy one.

    In other words, false positives. Also, doesn't it phone home every day or something? You'd think you'd only need to check once.
    --
    Want a high quality FOSS RTS game? Try Warzone 2100!
  6. Re:Wait... why does this make them evil? by Hope+Thelps · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Good end evil don't come into it.

    Unacceptable behaviour isn't justified by saying that the perpetrator was acting in his own best interests rather than out of a desire to hurt people.

    If the electricity company thinks I'm fiddling the meter to get out of paying them what I should then there are some acts that are acceptable for them to resolve that and some that aren't. I'd say that entering my premises on the pretext of fixing a dangerous defect in the system and while they're here hiding a camera that relays images to them would be unacceptable.

    You may well not like the analogy or you may draw the line of acceptable versus unacceptable at a different point to me, but either way the issue isn't resolved by saying that they're not evil and they're just out to protect their own interests. We have to make judgments on what is and isn't acceptable in pursuit of those interests.

    To me, Microsoft have gone way over the line. You may disagree. But don't try to reduce it to a comic book battle of good versus evil and then accuse me of calling them evil.

    --
    To summarise the summary of the summary: people are a problem. ~ h2g2