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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...
...then the forced upgrades ought to be worth at least that.
Not a couple of weeks ago, I got a card in the mail saying there had been some kind of settlement over front loading washing machines. I went to the web site, clicked some options (it seemed legit; they asked for no personal information, and you had to enter two validation codes from the card) and it seems I'm to get $50 for some defect or other related to mold and my washing machine, a machine which never stopped working and I still use (there is some mold on the door seal, I just wipe it off periodically, other than that it cleans just fine).
If my desktop computer which worked acceptably began downloading a new operating system and then quit working right after, shouldn't I be entitled at least $50 in a class action? My guess is Microsoft didn't quit this lawsuit because it just didn't feel like litigating that day, they did to halt the contagion of a precedent of four or five figure legal decisions over their Win 10 upgrade.
For a lot of use cases, it's not hard to see high costs: new machine, new application version(s) to be installed, data migrated, loss of use, $10k isn't entirely out of range in many business use cases.
I just kind of hope MS ends up with one of those disclaimers in their financial report explaining how they are setting aside $500 million to handle lawsuits resulting from their forced and negligent forced upgrades.
"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.
As an IT company who has repaired literally hundreds of failed updates, as well as failed roll backs to the previous operation system (using Microsoft's own "revert me to my previous operation system" restore option, which had maybe a 60% success rate), the cost to consumers has likely been staggering in the aggregate.
While profitable to my company, I can't help but feel like there needs to be a very quick verdict against Microsoft, ruling several hundred dollars to anyone who can show (Via invoice or other means) that they had to pay money to repair the damage/inconvenience Microsoft directly caused as a result of their underhanded tactics to upgrade the world to Windows 10.
If this were a mistake made by some fledgling software company it might be excusable as an oversight, but this is a many decades old software company, with many legal experiences under their belt... this should never have happened and there should be actual repercussions.
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.
There's a huge difference though between providing a security update when an obscure bug, buffer overflow, or some other specific vulnerability is fixed, and an entire OS upgrade is relentlessly, essentially forced on the user.
I wasted about 20 hrs trying to prevent that crap from destroying my business. At $200/hr, can I sue?
Of course you can. In the US, you can sue anyone for any reason. If you can't find a lawyer to take up your case, you can always go pro se and represent yourself.
Whether you'll prevail and get any sort of a settlement is an entirely different question.
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.
Except Windows 10 is not a security update: the computer in question had Windows 7, which is still in extended support and will still get "proper" security updates until 2020.
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.
My immediate assumption was that they were worried that a court judgment against them would open them to many similar claims
Read it again. She won the court case. MS appealed, and then dropped the appeal.
It's also possible that the machine was reasonably old and that while the value of a new computer was not sufficiently better than the value of the system in operation (before it broke) to justify a purchase, it is now, when making the old system work is probably as expensive in terms of time invested as is setting up the new machine. So you get value both from newer hardware *and* saved time.
Ezekiel 23:20
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 you've demonstrated the issue right there by conflating "updates" and "security updates".
Last time I looked, although XP may be risky, using a properly patched Win 7 or 8 isn't a significant security risk, whereas installing any significant OS upgrade without proper testing, planning and backup is an unacceptable risk for people using their system for anything more serious than Minesweeper. Automatic updates should be reserved for urgent security updates of the "imminent remote pwnage" kind - anything less should be advisory & accompanied by warnings to back up and schedule the update for a 'quiet' time.
So, yeah, 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.
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. I'm not saying people should be complacent - just prioritize a bit.
(Plus, I really wish I could explain to the IT people at my employer why they shouldn't make their warning emails about phishing attacks look exactly like the sort of phishing attacks that they are warning against...)
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
Even a billion dollar company has to justify wasteful decisions to its shareholders.
Even a billion dollar company has to justify wasteful decisions to its shareholders.
*cough* apple new campus *cough*
lucm, indeed.
you still think its a campus...
It's a freaking space relay when finished it will fire a beam of energy into space to carry Jobs essence back to his homeworld.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
> 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.
ms has fucked up it
Truer words were never spoken.
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
Foggier words were never spoken.
I come here for the love
The "cost of further litigation" includes what would happen if they appealed and the appeals court found in the plaintiff's favor. Then the generic argument becomes fairly bullet-proof - anyone going to court with that argument is going to win.
It would unleash thousands of cookie-cutter pro-se and cheap-lawyer lawsuits, which they seriously don't want.
They don't have to worry about me, though. I've been MickeySoft free for almost 20 years. I have nobody to sue.
--
BMO
imagibe some company
It's easy if you try
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
How silly. It is a Scientific and Technological Advanced Research laboratory particle accelerator, and its mission is to re-establish the reality distortion field.
That and Tim Cook hopes it can give the next iPhone super speed.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
Microsoft made nearly $100,000,000,000 last year. It's the equivalent of someone who makes $50,000 a year spending 50 cents.
There's no point in tying up legal resources over such a small amount when you've secured a cheap settlement and no acknowledgement of any wrongdoing.
Ford execs decided it was cheaper to let people burn, and pay the cost in court, than it was to fix the issue.
The memo cost them a lot of goodwill, but they are still around.
MS is probably looking that memo over right now thinking the same thing.
Cost to pay pissed off citizens is cheaper than fixing Win10, so....
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
Actually, that's not entirely true....
For example, if you get a speeding ticket in New Orleans, it is ALWAYS advantageous to show up to set a court date, and not pay automatically even IF you are guilty as hell.
What you do is set your date, then show up at date, and before the trial, the traffic DA will bring all the folks back and offer you a "plea deal", in which the charge will be dropped down to a non-moving violation charge, which will keep it off your insurance driving record, and you just pay a fine.
They are only interested in the revenue, but it is nice to not get your insurance involved.
Check with your city as that I'm sure things vary widely, but I am of the understanding that this is more common than not....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
entirely possible (and easy) to disable all of the metrics and info that the software wants to send about you
I'm impressed. I tried to do this, but Windows 10 continued sending thousands of encrypted packets per day to different Microsoft servers. I have no idea what's in those packets. You apparently were able to decrypt them, inspect their contents, and determine they were benign. Would you mind sharing your analysis?
"If there was a gay Afro-Puertorican Linux distribution, I'd give it a try" ~lucm
For example, if you get a speeding ticket in New Orleans, it is ALWAYS advantageous to show up to set a court date, and not pay automatically even IF you are guilty as hell.
That's interesting. I lived in NOLA for 4 years back in the late 80's, and heard the same thing. The reason was supposedly that cops would almost never show up for the court date, and you'd win by default. Had a guy on my hall arrested for jaywalking (in actuality, for bumping into a cop and apologizing in a New England accent), who did exactly this.
I'd figured in the intervening years, particularly with the post-Katrina police force, things would have changed. Chalk one up for the endurance of culture, I guess.