Lawsuit Claims WGA Is Spyware

twitter writes "Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA), Microsoft's euphemistically named digital restrictions scheme, is the target of another spyware and false advertising lawsuit. 'Microsoft this week was sued in a Washington district court for allegedly violating privacy laws through Windows XP's Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) copy protection scheme. Similar to cases filed in 2006, the new class action case accuses Microsoft of falsely representing what information WGA would send to verify the authenticity of Windows and that it would send back information [daily IP address and other details that could be used to trace information back to a home or user]. The complaint further argued that Microsoft portrayed WGA as a necessary security update rather than acknowledge its copy protection nature in the update. WGA's implementation also prevented users from purging the protection from their PCs without completely reformatting a computer's system drive.' There were at least two other lawsuits launched in 2006 over WGA. According to the Wikipedia article, none of them have been resolved. The system is built into Vista and Windows 7."

Comments

Amusing name

[Anonymous Coward]

The naming scheme of this add-on somehow reminds me of how certain countries like to add attributes such as "people's" and "democratic" to their official state designations...

Re:I don't get why this is a problem

[0123456]

Legit users, of course, don't have to worry because Windows will never stop working for them (there are some exceptions, but those are typically solved quickly)

I bet you also believe that 'if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear', right?

I don't give a flying monkey crap about Microsoft's profits; I care about my software randomly not working because some crappy 'validation' software decides that I'm a criminal. More than that, I care about the whole concept of being treated as a criminal until proven innocent by a company that I've paid money to for the product I'm using.

You may be happy to bend over for big corporate profits, but I'm increasingly fed up with this crap -- not just from Microsoft but from other companies who decide to prevent software I've purchased from running until I beg them to fix their god-damn piece of crap 'validation'/'activation'/DRM bullshit -- to the extent that I'm now doing my best to completely eliminate Windows and commercial software which contains this kind of shit from my home.

Re:Nothing will happen

[node 3]

Corporations do not have the same rights as natural persons in the USA.

That is a deliberately misleading statement. Shame on you for using it.

Corporations have rights as persons. The distinction of "natural persons" is silly. It should be that persons are human beings. Period. Calling corporations "persons" (but not "natural persons") leads to a class system were some "persons" (corporations) have rights/indemnities that actual human persons do not.

That is [management going to jail for crimes the company commits] already the law in the USA.

Not really. There are situations where that happens, but tell me, how many Ford executives went to prison for the Pinto? Or that guy that owns the peanut factory that was responsible for killing people a year or so ago? Or Gates and Ballmer over MS's anti-trust conviction?

Sure, an executive might go to jail, but unless their crime involves financial misconduct, the odds of them going to jail is infinitesimal. And even in the case of financial misconduct, if their misconduct only ruins the lives of their human customers it's no big deal, only if they defrauded either the "market", the company itself, or rich people, do actual humans go to jail for the crimes of their company.

The fact is, corporations get to have their cake and eat it too. They get rights as persons, but they don't have the responsibilities and liabilities of persons. The notion that people are "natural persons" and corporations are just "persons" is absurd.

One word: Oracle

[El_Oscuro]

I know of great place to get the latest version of Oracle Enterprise addition for any platform, no license keys, no activation required, no trial periods, no protection at all. Just download it for your favorite platform and install it.

technet.oracle.com

Last time I checked, Oracle is pretty profitable, even though they have no copy protection of any kind. Apparently, the ACTUALLY trust their customers somewhat which puts them in a pretty rare class these days.

Microsoft is only shooting themselves in the foot:

1. Copy protection doesn't work. It didn't work in the 1980's and it won't work now.
2. WGA might not really create a disincentive for pirates, as most people who download a cracked copy off pirates bay do not always obtain the latest security patches from Microsoft.
3. These pirated copies are actually free advertising for Microsoft. It gives them the net effect which is still very important in these markets.
4. WGA definitely creates a disincentive for legitimate customers like me:
   1. I have a legal copy of MS-Office which I no longer have installed. After having to go through the activation drill twice after reinstalling Windows, it just seems too much of a hassle to do it again. Thus, I have become much more proficient in Open Office, and can pass those skills unto others.
   2. My Ubuntu Dell laptop also came with a Vista CD. I briefly considered installing it somewhere, as I figured becoming familiar with the latest version of Windows would be useful, maybe running in a VM or something. WGA nixed that idea, and whatever neat features Vista has, I have never seen them.
5. Privacy is not a straw man. It is in fact a very big deal to me. Once someone else has control over your computer, whether it is Microsoft or some Haxt0r, it is pwnd. I have moved anything important to Linux a long time ago, and no longer trust any Windows computer connected to the Internet with any important information.

Re:Nothing will happen

[v1]

Microsoft has had monopolistic practices, but they are not (by definition) a monopoly.

Naturally that depends on what your definition of monopoly is, but one common definition seems to be:

In economics, a monopoly exists when a specific individual or an enterprise has sufficient control over a particular product or service to determine significantly the terms on which other individuals shall have access to it.

Microsoft consistently fits this definition. Though Europe seems to be a bit more consistent in enforcing it, probably because MS's lobbying is far less effective across the pond.