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Lenovo Ordered To Refund 'Microsoft Tax'
angry tapir writes with an excerpt from an article over at TechWorld: "A French laptop buyer has won a refund from Lenovo after a four-year legal battle over the cost of a Windows license he didn't want. The judgment could open the way for PC buyers elsewhere in Europe to obtain refunds for bundled software they don't want, according to French campaign group No More Racketware."
Not really. It's an OEM version of Windows, so MS says, "Deal with Lenovo". If the user declines the license agreement, it says he can return Windows for a full refund.
Blame MS for pushing off onto the OEMs.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
How would that judge feel about exclusive contracts for mobile phone hardware.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Does this say anything for buyers outside Europe? I bought a Lenovo laptop and tried to get them to refund the Windows license I was not planning to use and they said they can't do that.
Like it or not, the software bundled with your computer drives its cost down. Those companies (Norton, AOL, Roxio etc.) pay to have their software preloaded on your machine. If it becomes standard practice to offer a blank machine, hardware prices will just increase. Some manufacturers even offer a crapware free machine for a nominal fee.
Does anyone honestly think that retailers would charge you $50 less (or whatever the cost of the Windows License is, probably closer to $15) if Windows wasn't installed? Just look at Dell when they offered Linux boxes. The cost of the machine was often times more than the equivalent Windows machine.
Lesson learned here is offer an option for an unsubsidized blank hard drive that costs more than the Windows version. Problem solved, no "Microsoft Tax"
No one is Forcing Lenovo to sell configurations they don't want to.
The court is just holding them to the conract they entered into with MS with regards to refund requests from customers who don't agree to the Windows license / EULA.
If OEMs really wanted to avoid the issue, they could have their order page / retail outlets present people with the license at checkout, and then ship the systems with that part of the OOBE skipped / pre-answered.
I've always wondered that. I have no proof but I believe all of that crapware (aside from Windows) is there because the publishers are paying for it to be there. Not bundling it may actually increase the cost to the consumer. I wouldn't be surprised if the OEMs were not under NDAs regarding pricing that they would come back and say "If you don't agree with the EULA, return the computer for a refund or pay extra to not use the software"
Nope. OEM EULA was amended since XP. It now says that the OEM version is only refundable as part of the hardware it came with.
If a company wishes to not sell specific configurations of their products no one should force them.
Sorry, some corporations if left to their own devices are incapable of doing what is right, ethical and lawful.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
Lenovo does not have a free choice. They can either refuse Microsoft's thuggish demands (do not sell linux or we will cut off all supplies of Windows to you), or they can give in to Microsoft's thuggish demands. They have no power.
- You have no idea if what you're saying it true or not. You're just making up a story to make a point.
- I really doubt that MS would cease selling Windows to Levono because Levono choose to sell some computers with blank hard drives.
I don't respond to AC's.
It's a bit different with Macs, though. You got effectively one vendor as your sole source for Macs. It'd be different if Dell, Lenovo and all the others were free to ship computers with OS X installed, but that's not the case. So if you intentionally choose that one vendor that whose product is in large part the OS that it ships with and you brought a suit like this, the judge would probably laugh at you and ask why you didn't just purchase from someone else and get a computer with Windows installed on it or something. With Windows, nearly every company is bundling Windows, so even if you chose a different vendor, you're likely going to wind up stuck with Windows anyway. Though I don't know why you chose to respond to me in particular, as I'm not even really arguing in favour of this ruling.
Nobody's being forced to buy anything they don't want. A guy voluntarily purchased a laptop with Windows installed on it, and wanted to return part of what he bought.
I don't respond to AC's.
It has to do with their stated primary purpose: Increase shareholders' equity. Anything else is secondary. Hence you can't really expect a corporation to be "ethical". If for a corporation being "right, ethical and lawful" are the best options to increase shareholders' equity, then it will be forced to behave.
However if it can get away with, say, throwing toxic waste directly in a river regardless of the danger to population and irreversible destruction to the environment, it will readily do it, because it serves the primary purpose. Where there are strong public institutions to force them to behave, their best bet is to subvert these public institutions.
Examples are countless, but one I found particularly telling, in CBC's documentary "Tipping Point: The Age of the Oil Sands," in which at one point a representative of a native nations who are suffering the oil sands exploitation addresses directly Statoil shareholders in Norway. They could not have been less bothered.
National (and European) laws trump EULAs.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
We already had that in Europe, for example you can get a refund from ACER:
- http://www.acer.it/ac/it/IT/content/rimborso
It's around 40 euro for Win ~professional, you do have to send it back to ACER by your own but at least it's an automatic procedure: they just give you the money back with no questions.
Gimme your address and I'll send you the nothing you pay for a FreeDOS license.
I see some of you are speculating about what should be the value of the refund for a Windows licence:
- http://static.acer.com/up/Resource/Acer/Docs/IT/20110110/Windows_refund_process_flow_rev_Nov_11th_2009.pdf
That is according to ACER Refunds in Italy, dunno if that's the same in the rest of Europe.
As it is a PDF (1 page) I'll give you some pointers:
- Seven Home: 25e
- Seven Starter: 20e
- Seven Home Basic: 35e
- Seven Home Premium: 40e
- Seven Prof 70e
- Seven Ultimate 90e
It is illegal to conspire with someone else to assist him in a crime. And amuse of monopoly is a crime.
This means, yes, Lenovo can be forced to sell computers without Windows if Windows bundling is a part of monopoly abuse.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Exactly. You don't expect to buy a car and return the steering wheel do you?
No, I expect to buy a car and not find that every model from every brand comes with a dead body painstakingly sewn to the back seat as a mandatory option.
Game! - Where the stick is mightier than the sword!
People can find more vulnerabilities when they have access to the source. News at 11.
And treating the fact that the CAs were running Linux as evidence that Linux was the problem is ridiculous. Most vulnerabilities are on flaws of the userspace code. In fact, your second link shows it very well - Javascript injections are hardly an OS exploit. Good FUD there.
I do wonder why you host your email on a Linux based provider, though.
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The point is that like a lot of things in life you save money for the bundle and if you don't like it don't fucking buy it!
Impossible. There is no consumer choice. Windows is still on >85% of all PCs sold (the rest of which are Macs with their obnoxious requisite markup) and I'll be damned if less than 95% of those came without a single piece of crapware.
Consumers shouldn't have to be forced to support Microsoft if they want a computer - and in fact, most people need a computer. And many of them have specific hardware requirements which those smaller Linux vendors can't always provide. So what are they supposed to do?? Why should they be forced to support those monopolist shitbags just to make a living?
The French court did the right thing here and I wish the EU would drop the sanity hammer and force OEMs to offer all computers with an option for no operating system at a full OEM license discount for said OS. What reason is there not to? Can MS not compete on the technical merit of the software they write? Otherwise MS can just gouge away and continue to rely on sucking more money from OEMs/bundlers, basically getting by with nothing but all those shady backroom deals that they make...
I have left slashdot and am now on Soylent News. FUCK YOU DICE.
I have purchased several PCs with an included microsoft license. I read the agreement and in all cases the Vendor stated that they would refund the operating system cost if it was requested and not installed. Having called these companies, I can tell u that they will pretend to have no idea wat u r talking about and insist that u return the entire purchase for a refund. I choose not to refund and tried for months to communicate with them in order to receive the refund they promised in the agreement they sent to me. The first thing their support staff told me was to call Microsoft for a refund. But the windows license agreement clearly states in the beginning it is between u (consumer) and the vendor (HP, Lenovo, etc). I copied the entire agreement and quoted the pertinent parts to their support staff. But they continued to pretend not to understand what they had written. Finally, a support staff member from Hewlett Packard stated directly to me: "You will never get a refund from us".
The only recourse is to sue the vendor in order to get a refund. But realistically, who is going to do this. I commend this consumer for sticking to his guns and taking the vendor to task. It is about time some people stand up to fight for the agreement that the vendor puts in writing themselves. It is ridiculous that a vendor provides u with an agreement that they wont even honor and pretend to not understand. What do u think the vendor would do if u began to violate the license agreement urself? Like if I began selling free copies of the operating system. Do u think the vendor would continue to pretend that they dont understand the letter of this license?
It seems clear to me that Vendors supply the option for a refund in the agreement, because to not do so would subject them to anti-competitive practice lawsuits... which can be a huge fine. But the reality is that they have absolutely no intent of honoring this agreement and provide only two options: pay for something u dont want or refund everything and go away.
IMO, this situation is ripe for a class action lawsuit. I live in Canada. I would be more then happy to support such a case and offer all my assistance of past correspondence to assist in the case. I cannot believe I am the only one who finds the Microsoft bundled products less then useless and requested a refund as outlined in the agreement. Alone, it is difficult to do anything, but together I believe that real change could occur.
as to do with their stated primary purpose: Increase shareholders' equity. Anything else is secondary.
Corporations are required to follow their charter. Where do you kids get this stuff?
DATABASE WOW WOW
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Stop doing that.