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

Priceless

[UbuntuDupe]

Copy of Windows in China: $10

Settlement of legal dispute: $150

Suing Microsoft for collecting your personal info when you live in the People's Republic of China: Priceless.

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

Re:Priceless

[davester666]

"A Microsoft spokesman has declined to speak on this issue and said that the matter is under investigation"

In a press release, MS claims:

We have NO idea what information is gathered as part of WGA. We promise to investigate what information is gathered, and then blame the collection of personal information on a rogue programmer who did it without the permission or knowledge of management. In the future, we promise to encrypt all the personal information we collect so you can't tell that we are doing this anymore.

No more than 2 puppies were killed to produce this press release.

Self worth

[athdemo]

$180? Where's the self-esteem, guy? They violated you!

Re:Self worth

[HappySmileMan]

$180? Where's the self-esteem, guy? They violated you! I know... I've never paid more than 75 to be violated...

Wait, what are we talking about?

Re:Self worth

[ILikeRed]

But just think - there goes 25% of Microsoft's Vista sales in China.

If only...

[Starteck81]

...He could do the same to his own government.

Customers.

[Tackhead]

> "What we can say is that Microsoft is fully committed to letting customers control their personal information."

"Customers." They keep using that word. I do not think that word means what most of us think it means.

OEMs are the customer. The end user who purchases a PC from an OEM and finds himself dependent on Microsoft is not the customer, he is the product.

Re:Customers.

[fireboy1919]

Customer:
1) Person who potentially buys things. The one they buy from is known as a vendor.
2) (Microsoft dfn). Ugly bags of mostly water+some money. The idea is to get the money out of the bags and then be able to keep it. For some reason, the bags sort of hold on to it when it's being taken.

Re:Customers.

[Anonymous Coward]

> How about a more realistic look: OEMs are the customer who buys the Windows licenses. And end-users are the customers of the hardware vendors who preinstall Windows on their machines to make them usable for the masses.

The problem with Microsoft is they're no longer working this way. Their business model is much more like that of RIAA/MPAA.

The guy watching Battlestar Galactica isn't the customer of the Sci-Fi Channel. He's the product. Sci-Fi's customer is the advertiser, who purchases the product (us). BSG is merely the means by which Sci-Fi delivers the product (us) to the customer (advertiser).

Similarly, Microsoft's installed base is the product. OEMs are the customer, users are the product, and the operating system is the means by which Dell gets to monetize its investment in Microsoft OEM licenses.

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

[initdeep]

Only if they can also force people who can barely construct sentences to go back to school before posting on public forums as well........

solidarity begins at home.

[porky_pig_jr]

to those living in United States. before you start making fun of China, think of the situation with privacy in your homeland. Love, PPJ.

Re:I'd rather Microsoft have my info

[vux984]

I'd rather Microsoft have my personal info than the government. Any government.

If Microsoft had it they'd just sell it to the governent. Any government.

Why Doesn't Someone Do It In the U.S.?

[asphaltjesus]

WGA works the same here as it does in China. The notion that they collect "no personal information" is very clever, but untrue.

Microsoft can easily associate your pc with a record in their backend because each pc generates a unique signature. They don't have your name at the moment, but that doesn't mean they don't know who's using their OS when and where. Given the number of times a windows box phones home when it goes online, I'd say there's plenty they know about you.

This is exactly like the story some months ago where AOL gave out search data that was supposedly private. Same situation, bigger fish.

BTW, if you are still married to a microsoft OS, your software firewall should be good enough to alert you when it attempts these connections. My Kerio firewall at work does it. And marriage is the right word for it because sometimes you wonder what the hell you got yourself into.

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

[aevan]

I don't know...forcing people to sing contracts when they agree, might severely cut back on their [EULA]length. I know my voice would.

We're doomed

[Tablizer]

They are gaining in space, have cheaper manufacturing, out-hacked us (pentagon penetration last week), and finally they are taking our last remaining comparative advantage away: law-suits.

Probably the most important lawsuit this year

[SpeedDevil]

I truly hope he wins. And I am glad that he is not asking for much. I'm pretty sure Microsoft will try to settle out of court but I am also pretty sure this guy is not really doing this for the money. The Chinese government has been trying to reinforce the people's trust in their legal system so I don't think they will just push the case aside, especially after it being covered on Slashdot. I really hope this case gets the attention it needs because this case could be the answer to protecting the privacy of all of us. Setting the precedent in China will make way for more precedents elsewhere. Lu Feng ... we are with you!!! K PS: I'm pretty sure somebody in Microsoft is going nuts right now ... hehe

Why so stingy

[Nonillion]

Dude, it's Microsoft. You need to move that decimal place at least six more places to the right.

Re:He's Chinese He Has No Rights!

[Petrushka]

And, er, which country would you suggest he move to? Are you under the impression that there are any countries that don't collect personal data on their inhabitants and conduct surveillance on them? (I omit wiretaps, of course, as there are lots of countries that don't do that.)

Re:Outsource. This is not really funny.

[darkmeridian]

I would be careful about relying on the testimony of technicians. The United States was lulled into the first Gulf War partially on the testimony of a woman saying Iraqi troops were breaking into Kuwaiti hospitals and stomping infants in incubators to death. It later turned out the woman was a member of the Kuwaiti royal family, and made the whole thing up as part of a systematic Kuwaiti campaign to get America to attack their invaders.

That's not to say the charges against China are without basis. I'm just advocating some skepticism about people who may have a grudge against China, or have a good reason to lie about torture back home (so they can get asylum and citizenship here in the United States).