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Woman Wins $10,000 Lawsuit Against Microsoft Over Windows 10 Upgrades (seattletimes.com)
An anonymous reader shares this story from the Seattle Times:
A few days after Microsoft released Windows 10 to the public last year, Teri Goldstein's computer started trying to download and install the new operating system. The update, which she says she didn't authorize, failed. Instead, the computer she uses to run her Sausalito, California, travel-agency business slowed to a crawl. It would crash, she says, and be unusable for days at a time. "I had never heard of Windows 10," Goldstein said. "Nobody ever asked me if I wanted to update."
When outreach to Microsoft's customer support didn't fix the issue, Goldstein took the software giant to court, seeking compensation for lost wages and the cost of a new computer. She won. Last month, Microsoft dropped an appeal and Goldstein collected a $10,000 judgment from the company.
Microsoft denies any wrongdoing, and says they only halted their appeal to avoid the cost of further litigation.
When outreach to Microsoft's customer support didn't fix the issue, Goldstein took the software giant to court, seeking compensation for lost wages and the cost of a new computer. She won. Last month, Microsoft dropped an appeal and Goldstein collected a $10,000 judgment from the company.
Microsoft denies any wrongdoing, and says they only halted their appeal to avoid the cost of further litigation.
My guess is now a lot of people are going to be suing MS over this. While they deny they did any wrong doing, the court saw it otherwise.
Be seeing you...
While I completly understand that woman and I think she she is completely right being pissed, the problem is that the whole point of automatic updates is to keep those users up to date who otherwise would go "I had never heard of security updates and no one ever asked my if I want those updates". And it's those people who would sue if updates would not happen automatically and they are hacked due to not using the latest patches. Then, all of a sudden, it's "Microsoft should have done this automatically. They have proven that they can do it before" again.
bickerdyke
"Microsoft denies any wrongdoing, and says they only halted their appeal to avoid the cost of further litigation." MS has some deep pockets. Their given reason makes no sense. They could outspend any litigant.
If a few thousand other people who have similarly suffered also sued Microsoft it would send a message. Money talks. Publicity talks. Rinse and repeat and these kinds of things will no longer happen.
A business person makes choices based on finances. Also, time costs money.
If buying a new computer (with any Windows version), and having the company data moved over, costs less than the labor of reinstalling Windows 7 on the current computer, buy a new computer. If this solution also takes half the time, it is an even better financial decision.
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
Even a billion dollar company has to justify wasteful decisions to its shareholders.
This business you have... does it not run at least a server with a domain? I wouldn't expect Enterprise Windows but anything business-critical I'd expect a server, backups, etc. even if not full redundancy.
Then, it's just a matter of joining the domain and never seeing the upgrades.
This is a site for IT, still, yes?
Except this woman won her lawsuit. Microsoft dropped their appeal. The precedent has been set. You might need to prove exactly what the forced Windows 10 "upgrade" cost you, but you can cite this case along with your proof. (BTW, you can't just "quit" a lawsuit if you are the defendant, but you could try to arrange a settlement to avoid setting legal precedent.)
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
> by abusing the automatic update process (and doing their best to prevent users from keeping it disabled) Microsoft is being hugely irresponsible and endangering the security of users' systems.
Security is concerned with three things: Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability (CIA). Those initials are used in the first few pages of any introductory security curriculum. You should have learned at least that much in your annual "Computer Security and You" training video.
The unauthorized Win10 installation risks the Integrity of the users' data and its Availability. Because it includes spyware, it definitely damages the Confidentiality. It doesn't just "endanger the security", it absolutely damages the security by damaging confidentiality. It is the OPPOSITE of the goals that security people strive for, the opposite of a security update.
> There's a problem with IT security in general in that those responsible treat security as an end in itself, and never weigh the benefits of their security measures against the potential loss and disruption caused by the "security measures" themselves.
Fuck you for trying to blame this malware on "IT security people". It's precisely the opposite of eveything we do.
What does one have to do with the other? If [cost of litigation] + [probabilit of losing] * $10.000 is greater than $10,000 then you obviously just pay the $10,000. Other than the case where $10,000 will bankrupt the company (in which case litigate since who cares about another debtor) the valuation of the company is irrelevant.
Of course there's also the "how many other people will try this" factor but again losing an appeal increases that risk so keeping on going isn't necessarily the best choice there either.
Regarding your math here, the courts have essentially made any attempt at a defense or dismissal ultimately not worth the time or money, unless you quite literally have money to burn. Fighting a traffic ticket is almost always not worth it even if you were falsely accused, which the end result is essentially a system that stops no government at any level from running amok in order to generate "revenue".
Anyone still labeling it a "justice" system should be slapped repeatedly.
Windows 10 has absolutely no business being characterized as a 'security update,' not only because the scope is way too big for that but because it reduces security!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I've been MickeySoft(sic) free for almost 20 years. I have nobody to sue.
--
BMO
Meanwhile, Linux has turned you into a huge asshole.