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Microsoft Can Remotely Kill Purchased Apps

Posted by samzenpus on from the killing-distance dept.

Meshach writes "The terms of service for Microsoft's newly launched Windows Store allows the seller to remotely kill or remove access to a user's apps for security or legal reasons. The story also notes that MS states purchasers are responsible for backing up the data that you store in apps that you acquire via the Windows Store, including content you upload using those apps. If the Windows Store, an app, or any content is changed or discontinued, your data could be deleted or you may not be able to retrieve data you have stored."

9 of 389 comments (clear)

  1. And? by masternerdguy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So can apple.

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  2. Re:This better not be misused... by retech · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Once given you can rest assured any power will be abused.

  3. What is it with this trend of hostility? by Lotana · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What the hell is wrong with our IT industry and its hostility towards their users? When did this start and where did we go wrong that brought us to this state?!

    1. Re:What is it with this trend of hostility? by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It happened when the likes of Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook realised that being the owner of a walled garden (or even a slightly fenced garden) means you can do more-or-less what you like to users once you've locked them in.

      A lot of people might be upset, but 97% of them won't do any more than bitch about it on Slashdot/Facebook/Reddit/whatever, and they'll still keep buying. The few who really will vote with their wallets for a more user-friendly alternative or go without products/services that come with nasty strings attached are so small in number that the big players can just ignore them.

      That means the platform owners can adopt whatever abusive practices they want to make more money, short of breaking the law enough to lose a major lawsuit. And since the law everywhere is at least a decade behind the implications of modern technology, a lot of things that thoughtful geeks might consider dangerous aren't actually illegal anyway, at least not clearly so.

      None of this will change until either a large consumer backlash begins (which is not beyond the bounds of possibility in the world today, but is on a gentle simmer right now) or legislation starts getting written by smart, thoughtful people who think through the implications of modern technology, understand the need to protect consumers, also understand the need to make commerce reasonably profitable, and try to come up with policies that balance these factors in a fair way (and then I woke up...).

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    2. Re:What is it with this trend of hostility? by bmo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What the hell is wrong with our IT industry and its hostility towards their users?

      Because users are completely, utterly, stupid. At least the vast majority of them. 90 percent of people (I'm sure the statistic is higher) don't want computers. They think they want computers. What they really want are magic boxes that do magic things and don't want to worry about any kind of maintenance. Steve Jobs knew this. Microsoft is merely catching up.

      And Slashdot is not representative of the "computing" public. What you want, dear Lotana, doesn't count.

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      BMO

  4. Re:doubt it by forkfail · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The app store isn't just for Windows Mobile. It's for all of Windows 8. Which means that the summary missed the big ramification: as of Windows 8, you will absolutely no longer exclusively have root for your hardware.

    And I'm guessing that the majority of folks here have at least one windows box.

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  5. Re:doubt it by nomel · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Nobody will be forcing anyone to use metro or buy any of the walled garden metro apps. It's just a program that lets you run the sandboxed metro apps. Close it or boot into the standard desktop. Most metro apps will support windows mobile devices and the desktop.

    To the vast majority of users that download and try all the free apps they can click on and who don't know or care about any of this, being able to fix a "my phone is infected and doesn't work!" type scenarios is absolutely a feature.

    Also, I doubt any os provider will want to be in the spotlight for causing mass network outages after some trojan decides to activate on 100,000 phones, with no way to stop it.

  6. Re:doubt it by lightknight · · Score: 5, Insightful

    And Ballmer's sad parade of preferring DRM over any other form of innovation nears its end, with the death of Microsoft.

    Were I in charge of MS, my first standing order would be to rip out all DRM components from the OS, and dispatch any board member that disagreed with me. Followed shortly by my second order, which is to quit hiding / moving the fricking control panel every time we release a new version of Windows. And my third, and probably last order, before the shareholders revolt, would be to complete the migration of all OS functions to managed code. I say last order, as it would take several additional years to complete, during which the shareholders will no doubt lose confidence in my long term plan, and act to replace me.

    At no time, during my reign, would I forget that the company was founded on a simple principle: personal computers. More specifically, the importance of personal computers, as a paradigm, as opposed to mainframes, how the two differ, and why the personal computer propelled the company to success in the first place. More importantly, however much I might be annoyed with piracy, and given to personal fantasies of turning pirates into paying customers, I will be aware that every person who runs a pirated copy of my software is not running a copy of the competition's. Additionally, I would be mindful to exercise every opportunity to utilize the underlying OS and hardware to provide a better "experience" to the end user than could reasonably be fabricated through a web browser.

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  7. Re:doubt it by tomhudson · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Did the shelf life of XP and 7 just increase?

    XP will be around for a LONG time after Microsoft stops with the updates. It's not like it's going to suddenly stop working on April 9th, 2014. Microsoft by law can't "remote-kill" it, any more than they could DOS, WIn3x, and Win9x (there are plenty of those still running). And it's not like you're going to hit update.microsoft.com after the EOL date.

    I expect to see all the AV vendors branching out into "protecting" your now unsupported XP as part of their enhanced anti-virus suites. Businesses will snap it up rather than pay the cost of fixing their software against the latest moving target.