EFF Petitioned To Investigate Windows 10 Upgrades (change.org)

An anonymous reader writes: One of the most frustrating things about the ongoing stream of stories about Windows 10 upgrades is that there seems to be no way to hold Microsoft to account. Or perhaps there is: a petition asking the Electronic Frontier Foundation to investigate has now been posted on Change.org.
The petition argues "people are being tricked or forced into upgrading to Windows 10 from their current, preferred version of Windows," and describes Microsoft's actions as "ignorantly unethical at best and malicious at worst."

Comments

Windows 10 upgrades are good

[NotInHere]

they make people hate windows. This is the first step in installing GNU + systemd.

Re:Windows 10 upgrades are good

[Anonymous Coward]

I think GNU/system===D is pretty great. It has a lot of features in common with Linux, and is partially compatible with that OS.

Here is how to hold Microsoft accountable

[flacco]

- Back up your data files
- Wipe that abusive shit operating system off your machine
- Install Linux.

Don't look back.

Re:Here is how to hold Microsoft accountable

[houstonbofh]

What is the motivation to write a Linux port if they will get your money anyway?

Re: Here is how to hold Microsoft accountable

[chipschap]

Are you suggesting I should install Linux for... what?

I can't answer that question for you, but for me, the answer is "to get all my work done" as I've in fact done for 15+ years. Now, 15 years ago, it was much more of a struggle. Today, there is so much software for Linux that I seldom have to look very far. Office suite, graphics, audio processing, typesetting and desktop publishing, OCR, and on and on--- everything I need to do what I do.

I know there are specialized apps and games that don't run on Linux, and I know that Wine and even VMWare are not always good solutions. I know that some people legitimately need to run Windows, or simply want to run Windows.

But I do submit that the number of cases in which the claim is made that the job can't get done on Linux is more a function of not wanting to, rather than not being able to.

There's only one way to fix Microsoft

[JustNiz]

It boggles my mind how people rightly complain about this and all the other abuses by Microsoft, then go right out and buy another PC with Windows.Self-inflicted much?

Jeez people just vote with your wallet already.

What is the EFF supposed to investigate?

[Anonymous Coward]

The petition asks for the EFF to "investigate Microsoft". What investigatory powers does the EFF have? They can't just show up in Redmond and go "hey assholes, open up" - so did the petition's author mean the FTC instead or something?

Re:What is the EFF supposed to investigate?

[ClickOnThis]

The EFF does not have investigative powers, but it does have investigative talent, and a recognized history of advocacy for consumers.

Re:What is the EFF supposed to investigate?

[kheldan]

It won't be the first time that Microsoft has misbehaved on a scale that required some sort of large legal action. An organization like the EFF has enough credibility that if they 'investigate' the situation, find serious problems, and start talking to the right people, they'll be heard and something on an official level will be started. Random tech geeks complaining on an internet discussion forum aren't going to get anything done on their own, especially when 99% of the computer-using public don't even understand the problem when you try to explain it to them, they think they're just getting something that costs hundreds of dollars for free, and since the malware aspects of Windows 10 is silent, they don't even know how they're being taken advantage of with hardware they bought and paid for with their own money.

Re:What is the EFF supposed to investigate?

[im_thatoneguy]

What exactly would they even charge them with.

"Hey assholes, stop updating and maintaining your flagship product!"

This would set a really really bad precedent if they somehow did find Microsoft Legally guilty of something. What would that something be? Illegally updating code without consent? Downloading a bit without explicit consent?

Issue a security patch, have it install automatically: lawsuit.
Replace certificate in keychain: lawsuit.
Cache website before it's clicked on: lawsuit.
Download email automatically using default settings: lawsuit.

It's also incredibly ironic that Google is criticized for failing to keep the OS up to date on most devices causing fragmentation and Microsoft is criticized for failing to allow their OS to become fragmented. I'm sure most people with an Android device wished they had the problem "Google keeps ensuring every device gets the latest version of Android."

Wrong priorities

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Yes, Microsoft is being too aggressive, however I feel this is less important than finding out what is being sent via the telemetry service. I will not use Windows 10 because many of the projects I work on are under NDA. How do I know Windows isn't sending out info to the mothership that, in essence, violates that NDA? What if Windows is sending a list of all the folders on my hard-drive? An employee of theirs might see that and go "Hey, this guy is working on the Nintendo NX*! I'm going to post this to the rumors sites!" That's the sort of thing that could get me, my colleagues, and the companies I work for in trouble.

* I am not working on anything Nintendo related, I just plucked that example out of the air.

Re:Wrong priorities

[ljw1004]

I believe it doesn't send *memory dumps*. It sends crash dumps, also called "mini-dumps" within Visual Studio. They don't have the heap. They include registers. They include callstacks, but I think these only include address pointers not the stackframes themselves (not sure). They include a list of all loaded DLLs/EXEs in the process along with the address at which they're loaded.

(I work at Microsoft, and have had to investigate the occasional crash-dum- to fix whatever bug caused it, and the dumps didn't have any heap, so it's always taken a lot of guesswork and detective work to figure out what the bug was based only on the callstack).

YASP (Yet Another Stupid Petition)

[BarbaraHudson]

The EFF has zero enforcement powers. And petitions are useless. Real change happens in the courts, or by you changing your own behavior so as to not buy their products. Petitions are for slackers.

Re:Lets be real now, what did MS do wrong?

[ledow]

You should have stayed on for the second year of law school. They would have told you that a contract cannot be automatically upgraded unless reasonable and the reasonable opportunity given to back out or otherwise not agree to the terms, that all contracts have to be reasonable anyway, that contracts are meetings of minds, and that unfair contracts will be interpreted in favour of the party that didn't draw them up (i.e. the user).

A EULA is also not specifically a contract, though it may form part of one, but a grant of licence to use a copyrighted work. If the terms to use that copyrighted work include, say, automatic control over your computer, upgrades, telemetry, etc. then it could easily be interpreted as overbearing for a copyright licence. It's also certainly not an automatically binding contract, and is override by basic statutory rights and contract law. Just because you agree to "give your firstborn" does not mean that's legal - even if you WANT to do that! And changing the goalposts later never goes down well in court.

And I agreed the Windows 7 EULA, not the Windows 10 one. What if I disagree with the Windows 10 one? Are they trying to trick me into agreeing by other methods (i.e. automatically upgrading me?), giving me no reasonable option, etc.? That's basically duress.

Personally, I think MS are on a hiding to nothing, and they'll "get away" with it for the most part. And then when Windows 10 becomes "pay only", and Windows 11 is treated the same way, they'll be a comeback that everyone else will have seen coming.

All its shown me is that MS hasn't changed one bit in its existence and all the posturing of recent years is just a trap to force you to upgrade. I certainly shan't be buying MS licences for my own use and, by extension, I avoid and recommend against their cloud services, office products, browsers, and even their consoles, phones, tablets and software services (though, let's be honest, you hardly need to avoid that shite).

Chromebooks are going down well with everyone asking me about "cheap laptops". Office compatibility for home use is barely an issue any more. Cloud services have plenty of alternatives. Most people have seen iPads and Macs and understand "they aren't Windows" and it doesn't stop people nowadays. I get just as many Apple Pages job applications as Microsoft Word (and when its for a techy position, I file those in the Deleted Items folder appropriately).

Here's hoping it's just a swansong for Microsoft, but if we can screw them to the floor with an EU parliament investigation or similar, maybe we can completely remove their influence more quickly.