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

Re:Nothing will happen

[sco08y]

The fact is, corporations get to have their cake and eat it too.

Actually, they can't eat cake, because they don't really exist. It's the same reason you can't really punish them.

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.

So, can a corporation have free speech? No, because it doesn't have a mouth. Can a corporation carry a gun? No, because it doesn't have any hands to hold it with. Etc.

Sure, an executive might go to jail, but unless their crime involves financial misconduct, the odds of them going to jail is infinitesimal.

Ah, now we get to it. You don't like executives and think they should go to jail when a large group of people all get together and make an agreement to undertake a risky venture and said venture goes south.

Yes, that's how it used to be before incorporation, and the trouble with that system is that no one will take charge of those risky ventures because they'd be afraid of going to jail.

You talk about class and rights, but really you're just feeling vengeful and envious of people you don't even know, and I think you're pretty hypocritical in feigning concern for the little guy when under your system he'd be mired in poverty right now.

madness

[twitter]

How many beers is this worth? I have not seen Windows 7 and don't think I will. Some people like "more beer". I prefer "less beer".