Microsoft Sued by a Beijing Student Over 'Privacy Violation'

freakxx writes "Xinhua report that a Beijing University student has sued Microsoft for allegedly gathering personal information via Windows Genuine Advantage. He has demanded a compensation of 1,350 RMB (around US$ 180) and an open apology printed in a national newspaper. The student has accused Microsoft of using WGA to gather information about his computer and himself, rather than solely checking whether or not the installed Windows XP system was genuine. A Microsoft spokesman has declined to speak on this issue and said that the matter is under investigation."

Comments

Free Software?

[sweetandy]

It's like Catholicism! Why have your computer controlled by some remote, powerful entity rather than by yourself?

Re:M$ should be abelto forceM$ should be able to..

[Esion Modnar]

Look at some of the parent's other posts here. English sucks as a second language.

Outsource. This is not really funny.

[Erris]

There are some things you can blame on the government. For everything else, there's Microsoft.

How do you tell the difference? The severity of punishment for thought-crime in China makes privacy a very serious matter.

I'd like to make a joke about in how Communist China, you sue the BSA, but it's just not funny. People who look at the wrong web page are put in jail and executed for their organs. Technicians have testified before the US congress that prisoners were skinned alive to better preserve the skin. It should be a crime to do business with China.

I'm sure this is just PR and an attempt to shift blame to M$, but that's the kind of thing you expose yourself when you do business in a country like that.

I wonder if Canadians can do the same thing?

[WillAffleckUW]

Unlike the US, Canada has strong privacy rights, as Google is finding out, and which belong to all their citizens ... hmmm.