I used to work in credit before switching over to tech. I am not a lawyer, I just used to deal with this stuff professionally for a few years. I am just providing information to point you in the right direction.
The short of the matter is that they have probably pulled a copy of your wifes credit bureau report in order to issue the card. Since she did not sign the application, which they would have had to have forged, she did not give consent to have her credit report pulled.
Reference the FCRA (Fair Credit Reporting Act) 15 U.S.C. 1681. In particular reference 604 Permissible purposes of consumer reports [15 U.S.C. 1681b]. They have used the report in a manner not permissable.
The crux of the matter is that you may sue them for violating the FCRA. Reference 616 Civil liability for willful noncompliance [15 U.S.C. 1681n]. Since they forged her signature, they have wilfully broken this law.
1)(A) any actual damages sustained by the consumer as a result of the failure or damages of not less than $100 and not more than $1,000; or
(B) in the case of liability of a natural person for obtaining a consumer report under false pretenses or knowingly without a permissible purpose, actual damages sustained by the consumer as a result of the failure or $1,000, whichever is greater;
(2) such amount of punitive damages as the court may allow; and
(3) in the case of any successful action to enforce any liability under this section, the costs of the action together with reasonable attorney's fees as determined by the court.
You can also nail their ass with this:
619. Obtaining information under false pretenses [15 U.S.C. 1681q]
Any person who knowingly and willfully obtains information on a consumer from a consumer reporting agency under false pretenses shall be fined under title 18, United States Code, imprisoned for not more than 2 years, or both.
Napster is dead, they surrendered to the RIAA and turned coat. The service is now strictly DRM, and is nothing more than the fulfillment of a record exec's wet dream. Refuse to fulfill the fantasy of the RIAA, boycott Napster. Nothing more to say here.
Too often companies hear only negative things and don't hear from customers when they do the right thing. They boned up, apologized, and have said they won't do it next year. So why not let them know they did the right thing? At the bottom of their page with the activation numbers is a rating and comment box for how effective the solution was.
I have done this before. Unfortunately it was because my company was too cheap to get us dual computers - which we needed. For some jobs, where large amounts of screen real estate can make a difference it can actually be cheaper to use dual monitors than one larger monitor. It can also be more effective as well. Think of it this way, if your alt-tabbing more than 50 - 100 times a day, dual monitors are justified.
Basicly anybody that needs to visualize more than one application to do a job on a consistent basis could benefit. Where I work now I could certainly use two monitors, but it isn't an available option. Extra time scrolling and trying to find my visual place (I work with a lot of data) easily eats up a fair chunk of my day. Frankly, I'd rather have a dual 17" CRT's than a single LCD for the practical usability of dual monitors. It would also probably be cheaper.
This isn't just science. How many major computer companies were founded by people who never even finished college? Dell, Microsoft, Apple, and so on, these are all companies that would never hire their own founders considering them unqualified. I'm reasonably certain that this problem persists in other industries as well.
DRM Rewrite? The code that was copied was the game's engine. Not the levels or graphics files. Nothing would be spoiled by this, because the player interaction part wasn't copied. A delay of a little while would make sense just to make sure the game itself wasn't trojaned, but an additional four months? I don't buy it.
This has to be DRM vulernability concerns. They will lose millions from not selling over the holidays, and nothing with the engine itself would justify this.
After all the engine is fairly easy to detect if someone ever decides to try and make an unathorized copy or derivative, and this would be suicide to commercially exploit. Are they sincerely that worried about a driver exploit based on insider knowledge of the engine, enough to deliberately lose millions in holiday sales - especially with Doom 3 already pushed past the holiday season which they would have owned, I don't think so.
They are bringing this delay on themselves, causing their own problems, and deserve no sympathy for any lost sales.
RTFA and it did not mention it's just a one button dialogue box. Inquirer article I read after writing comment did. MS finally has a chance to do the right thing, enhance security, and they blow it. All this is going to result in is training people to click "OK" every time they see it on a page. After being conditioned to do this constantly, they'll do it to anything.
Ugh, I retract what I said, and must continue cursing MS as before. What I'd really like to see though is for it to remember which "enhancements" I have declined so that I don't have to bother with them again. Flash, gator, bonzai buddy and on and on.
Law of unintended consequences steps up to the plate. This security enhancement took a half billion dollar patent lawsuit to be brought about. What will bring about the next one be and how much will it cost? Maybe, just maybe, they will someday learn that fluid integration of third party code without user approval is a bad idea?
I'm interested in what your saying especially with regard to people who don't have the right machine or account with the ISP. Would you have any links on these by chance? I have seen their much publicized gaff with the retired school teacher sued for (and later dropped) for hosting gangster rap on her... mac.
Minneapolis MN, where according to BP I have a "good" solar rating (which to be perfectly honest surprised me, I expected less). You see I want to have solar power, I really do, it's just so damn expensive. I calculated my ROI based on the rate of savings their website listed as per what I currently pay for electricity. Perhaps I might get it a bit cheaper elsewhere, but the amount you had to pay post rebates is about 3/4 of what I would have to pay post rebate. Just out of curiousity, how much was your setup before rebates?
Last time I priced solar power it was about $25,000 for my residence before rebates. Knock $6000 off for rebates, and it's still almost $19,000 out of pocket. It would take an estimated 27 1/2 years to pay for itself (assuming no maintenence since I don't know what that would cost). By all means, keep up the research on this, but to expect joe sixpack to adopt solar power right now for a household is just not realistic.
It's not that I'm opposed to solar power, but until something can be done to bring the price out of the stratoshere, it's simply not economicaly plausable right now. I generaly try to be environmentaly sensitive, but I shouldn't have to be a millionaire to make a significant contribution. All of which disregards the energy spent making the things and the fact that used solar panels are bad for the environment! I think I'll stick with nuclear energy for now.
How long until somebody here get's the judges home number and posts it here. Court decisions judges are public information, so it shouldn't be too difficult. I then wonder how long it would take for him to start getting the point about unsolicited marketing? With 50 million now po'd Americans, somebody is going to let the world know.
This kind of abuse of civil rights almost always happens with paedophiles first. Simply put, who'se going to defend a paedophile? What most people don't realize though is that legally the precedent has been established if it gets accepted for paedophiles. I don't like paedophiles, but it's not a case of whether or not I like them, it's a case of establishing precedent and avoiding rights creep.
It's a very old trick of those who would entrench upon the civil rights of the populace. That or they do things to the military first since they can't really do anything about it and they don't have these pesky "civil rights" to deal with. Paedophiles and military, the bleeding edge of the war on civil rights. This just goes to show why civil rights for even the lowest dredges of society are so important.
Simply put, I can't trust a MS based search to return relevant information and not censor it's results. Until MS can resolve this issue, their search will never be as popular as Google. This is the single fundamental lesson that all other search engines seem to have failed. Between paid placements to censoring undesirable topics or information, they have all lost credibility. I want information, not someone else's judgement. Many people have long been in the habit of automatically going to page three or so in the search results just to get past paid placements.
Try this Grandtec keyboard. It's full size, mini available, rolls up into a small bundle, and easily stuffs into your notebook bag. I've traveled extensively with mine, and am quite happy with it (no association with co).
Intel also previewed an instant on/off technology, allowing consumers to press the "on" button and the PC is ready in a few seconds.
Didn't we have instant "off" capabilities back in the day of the 8086? Does anyone else miss the ability to push the power button and have their computer turn off now? With most modern BIOS's ignoring user settings for instant off, it really has to make me wonder about some of these new fangled "innovations".
The thing that makes me wonder though is this part
If the PC loses power, this technology quickly recovers without losing data or rebooting the PC under normal operation.
Just how are they going to avoid rebooting a computer if the power goes off? MRAM is set to debut, and this could in theory hold the users' data state, but you still have to boot the computer up through the normal BIOS process, or am I missing something?
Wohoo! I can get all that for $100 for the whole danged company! Ever since they went outsource crazy, we haven't got any employees left. Of course the CEO couldn't be outsourced to India... yet.
Crushing may not be enough to prevent data recovery. To truely prevent data recovery you have to change the structure of the metal itself. Usually the easiest way to do this is with an acyteline (surely spelled wrong) torch that is used to heat the platters white hot. This will actually physically change the molecular structure of the platter, and prevents any form of data recovery. After this they are then sent directly to a recycling company that will slag them. I have a sample platter that went through the torch process, and the warping of the remnant aluminum base is quite evident.
So you've sold your car and will no longer use and plastic (petroleum - oil) products? You do realize how many things you use are based on plastic right? Personaly I'd recommend a good ass for it's world renown cargo capacity. Excellent off road capability, doesn't eat too much compared to an elephant, but does still produce global warming emissions out the exhaust pipe. Careful though, or people passing by might confuse you with the ass.
Unfortunately this list is politicaly charged, in many cases blatantly made up, and frankly, a list of non-stories. As someone quite opposed to censorship, I was very dissapointed to not see any censored stories. These people are giving the anti-censorship movement a bad name.
My counters are not to the poster that put them here for/. reader usage, but to the list creators. I realize I am harsh here, but to use the mantle of censorship exposure to touts personal political opinions that have nothing to do with censorship ticks me off.
#1: Is this any different than the "Progressive" plan for global dominance? Second Superpower ring a bell to anyone? All political idealogues want to dominate everyone's politics, laws and morals. #2: This is censored? Most days I have trouble finding news coverage that doesn't cover "Homeland Security". #3: Which Iraqi report? I'm fairly sure with the war and all that the US has probably had hundreds, if not thousands of reports generated on Iraq. Chances are pretty good that most of them have been edited, just like my own reports for college were. #4: How this can be anything other than propaganda I don't know. Are we supposed to go back to ignoring them like we did under Clinton? USS Cole, Embassies in Africa, Apartment buildings, 9/11 were all results of non-action about terrorists. #5: We finally have something that has a gain of credibility. Unfortunately this story is out of date by over a century. Since anti-union measures have been reported by the media, it's not censorship. #6: This is so ambigous as to be meaningless. Are we referring to library filters? That was certainly reported. What about DRM attempts by big business? Disney's attempts were promptly squashed in Congress when the people got hold of that attempt. #7: Hm, the only treaty we "Busted" was the one that kept us from developing an anti-missle defense. And that one was busted with full notice to Russia. It also made worldwide news for months - thus not censored. Perhaps there referring to Kyoto which we have never approved? #8: These are illegal? Says who? Not only that, but I certainly heard about their use, so it's not censored. #9: West of China, North of Pakistan, East of Iran, South of Turkmenistan, South of Uzbekistan, and South of Tajikistan. Perhaps they need an atlas? #10: Really, near as I can tell most of the world is content to ignore Africa, and I can't think of anybody who would want to invade it. I'm also not aware of any countries setting up colonies anywhere, much less Africa. I will give though that a story broke about China and India talking about colonizing the moon in a decade, but that's a pretty long ways from Africa. #11: What massacare? We seem to be giving them pretty good treatment compared to the other countries they could face and they know it. Even the ones released from Guantameno have told people that. #12: There have been some stories about corporate right to free speach that made the news (Telemarketers are suing over do not call list), so how is this censored? As for Corporate Personhood, that story is more than a few years old, and certainly made the news. #13: Would this be the green self deactiving landmines they are developing or the lead free bullets that are being developed? How about the next generation HUMVEE which will be a hybrid - our best chance of getting real Hybrid technology researched for the masses? #14: I've heard of a lot of unwanted refugess trying to get into Britain, Australia and the US - hey aren't those the evil bad repressive countries? #15: Really, I recall the failed military couple making worldwide news. Bush was behind it? Is this like the CIA distributing crack in poor neighborhoods to make sure Blacks are repressed? #16: We finally have a real reference. I hope they have some facts to back this up, their not batting very good so far, and
Since they changed who their customer were. From the article I find this quote disturbing.
"Initial customer feedback from the entertainment industry in general has been very favorable," Eades added.
Their customers are now the entertainment industry. You'll note that they did not refer to the OEM's as being the customers. What this means is that the the entertainment industry has done an end run on the computer industry. By becoming the BIOS companies primary customers, they dictate what gets made, and they dictate DRM. Now your operating system is irrelevant, because the BIOS itself trumps any OS. I wouldn't be surprised to find out they they have already been shipping this discreetly to avoid a last minute splurge of DRM free equipment.
Not reasonable to do so here. This person purchased a notebook computer, not a desktop. Whilst I agree that people should build their own computer (I've been doing it for quite some years), it's simply not feasible to do this with a notebook. If you need a notebook, you have to buy a preassembled one. If you do, you need to be told at the time of purchase that you are required to agree to all license agreements before you can decline Windows or anything else. With many computers now shipping from the factory with spyware enabled applications, I don't consider this a moot point.
This is more of an issue if you are in fields like medical, defense, and other such data / privacy oriented environments. Agree to a EULA that lets a third party monitor data on your computer in these environments and you could conceivably go to prison if not get sued. The factory images can't be trusted, and are always unsuitable to business use. As a result most business or government systems are imaged before ever being put into use.
The other problem is the license agreements are forced to be agreed to blindly without an option to decline. It would be different if the message on boot brought you sequentially through all software liceneses, with an opportunity to decline and still use the hardware. Afterall, it's the hardware that I'm buying, especially if I want to use Linux. The license agreements may be commonplace and ignored, but unfortunately there also presently considered legally enforceable contracts. Makes me wonder when someone will prove a point on this by making a license that requires the turnover of a persons' estate when they die.
Slashdot Mirror
The short of the matter is that they have probably pulled a copy of your wifes credit bureau report in order to issue the card. Since she did not sign the application, which they would have had to have forged, she did not give consent to have her credit report pulled.
Reference the FCRA (Fair Credit Reporting Act) 15 U.S.C. 1681. In particular reference 604 Permissible purposes of consumer reports [15 U.S.C. 1681b]. They have used the report in a manner not permissable.
The crux of the matter is that you may sue them for violating the FCRA. Reference 616 Civil liability for willful noncompliance [15 U.S.C. 1681n]. Since they forged her signature, they have wilfully broken this law.
You can also nail their ass with this:
Napster is dead, they surrendered to the RIAA and turned coat. The service is now strictly DRM, and is nothing more than the fulfillment of a record exec's wet dream. Refuse to fulfill the fantasy of the RIAA, boycott Napster. Nothing more to say here.
Too often companies hear only negative things and don't hear from customers when they do the right thing. They boned up, apologized, and have said they won't do it next year. So why not let them know they did the right thing? At the bottom of their page with the activation numbers is a rating and comment box for how effective the solution was.
I have done this before. Unfortunately it was because my company was too cheap to get us dual computers - which we needed. For some jobs, where large amounts of screen real estate can make a difference it can actually be cheaper to use dual monitors than one larger monitor. It can also be more effective as well. Think of it this way, if your alt-tabbing more than 50 - 100 times a day, dual monitors are justified.
Basicly anybody that needs to visualize more than one application to do a job on a consistent basis could benefit. Where I work now I could certainly use two monitors, but it isn't an available option. Extra time scrolling and trying to find my visual place (I work with a lot of data) easily eats up a fair chunk of my day. Frankly, I'd rather have a dual 17" CRT's than a single LCD for the practical usability of dual monitors. It would also probably be cheaper.
This isn't just science. How many major computer companies were founded by people who never even finished college? Dell, Microsoft, Apple, and so on, these are all companies that would never hire their own founders considering them unqualified. I'm reasonably certain that this problem persists in other industries as well.
DRM Rewrite? The code that was copied was the game's engine. Not the levels or graphics files. Nothing would be spoiled by this, because the player interaction part wasn't copied. A delay of a little while would make sense just to make sure the game itself wasn't trojaned, but an additional four months? I don't buy it.
This has to be DRM vulernability concerns. They will lose millions from not selling over the holidays, and nothing with the engine itself would justify this.
After all the engine is fairly easy to detect if someone ever decides to try and make an unathorized copy or derivative, and this would be suicide to commercially exploit. Are they sincerely that worried about a driver exploit based on insider knowledge of the engine, enough to deliberately lose millions in holiday sales - especially with Doom 3 already pushed past the holiday season which they would have owned, I don't think so.
They are bringing this delay on themselves, causing their own problems, and deserve no sympathy for any lost sales.
RTFA and it did not mention it's just a one button dialogue box. Inquirer article I read after writing comment did. MS finally has a chance to do the right thing, enhance security, and they blow it. All this is going to result in is training people to click "OK" every time they see it on a page. After being conditioned to do this constantly, they'll do it to anything.
Ugh, I retract what I said, and must continue cursing MS as before. What I'd really like to see though is for it to remember which "enhancements" I have declined so that I don't have to bother with them again. Flash, gator, bonzai buddy and on and on.
Law of unintended consequences steps up to the plate. This security enhancement took a half billion dollar patent lawsuit to be brought about. What will bring about the next one be and how much will it cost? Maybe, just maybe, they will someday learn that fluid integration of third party code without user approval is a bad idea?
I'm interested in what your saying especially with regard to people who don't have the right machine or account with the ISP. Would you have any links on these by chance? I have seen their much publicized gaff with the retired school teacher sued for (and later dropped) for hosting gangster rap on her... mac.
A fine selection of pointy objects at Sam's point object emporium.
A visit by a local law enforcement type to see if I really meant "kill the bastard".
A lawsuit from actor that played said bastard for "emotional distress".
No thanks, the things I mutter under my breath should stay there and not be interperted by anyone, much less a computer.
Minneapolis MN, where according to BP I have a "good" solar rating (which to be perfectly honest surprised me, I expected less). You see I want to have solar power, I really do, it's just so damn expensive. I calculated my ROI based on the rate of savings their website listed as per what I currently pay for electricity. Perhaps I might get it a bit cheaper elsewhere, but the amount you had to pay post rebates is about 3/4 of what I would have to pay post rebate. Just out of curiousity, how much was your setup before rebates?
Last time I priced solar power it was about $25,000 for my residence before rebates. Knock $6000 off for rebates, and it's still almost $19,000 out of pocket. It would take an estimated 27 1/2 years to pay for itself (assuming no maintenence since I don't know what that would cost). By all means, keep up the research on this, but to expect joe sixpack to adopt solar power right now for a household is just not realistic.
It's not that I'm opposed to solar power, but until something can be done to bring the price out of the stratoshere, it's simply not economicaly plausable right now. I generaly try to be environmentaly sensitive, but I shouldn't have to be a millionaire to make a significant contribution. All of which disregards the energy spent making the things and the fact that used solar panels are bad for the environment! I think I'll stick with nuclear energy for now.
So the idea is that they can't shoot very well at our troops while their doubled over with laughter? I like it.
How long until somebody here get's the judges home number and posts it here. Court decisions judges are public information, so it shouldn't be too difficult. I then wonder how long it would take for him to start getting the point about unsolicited marketing? With 50 million now po'd Americans, somebody is going to let the world know.
This kind of abuse of civil rights almost always happens with paedophiles first. Simply put, who'se going to defend a paedophile? What most people don't realize though is that legally the precedent has been established if it gets accepted for paedophiles. I don't like paedophiles, but it's not a case of whether or not I like them, it's a case of establishing precedent and avoiding rights creep.
It's a very old trick of those who would entrench upon the civil rights of the populace. That or they do things to the military first since they can't really do anything about it and they don't have these pesky "civil rights" to deal with. Paedophiles and military, the bleeding edge of the war on civil rights. This just goes to show why civil rights for even the lowest dredges of society are so important.
Biggest concern holding this back:
MSN search as censored by Microsoft.
Simply put, I can't trust a MS based search to return relevant information and not censor it's results. Until MS can resolve this issue, their search will never be as popular as Google. This is the single fundamental lesson that all other search engines seem to have failed. Between paid placements to censoring undesirable topics or information, they have all lost credibility. I want information, not someone else's judgement. Many people have long been in the habit of automatically going to page three or so in the search results just to get past paid placements.
Try this Grandtec keyboard. It's full size, mini available, rolls up into a small bundle, and easily stuffs into your notebook bag. I've traveled extensively with mine, and am quite happy with it (no association with co).
Didn't we have instant "off" capabilities back in the day of the 8086? Does anyone else miss the ability to push the power button and have their computer turn off now? With most modern BIOS's ignoring user settings for instant off, it really has to make me wonder about some of these new fangled "innovations".
The thing that makes me wonder though is this part
Just how are they going to avoid rebooting a computer if the power goes off? MRAM is set to debut, and this could in theory hold the users' data state, but you still have to boot the computer up through the normal BIOS process, or am I missing something?
Wohoo! I can get all that for $100 for the whole danged company! Ever since they went outsource crazy, we haven't got any employees left. Of course the CEO couldn't be outsourced to India... yet.
Crushing may not be enough to prevent data recovery. To truely prevent data recovery you have to change the structure of the metal itself. Usually the easiest way to do this is with an acyteline (surely spelled wrong) torch that is used to heat the platters white hot. This will actually physically change the molecular structure of the platter, and prevents any form of data recovery. After this they are then sent directly to a recycling company that will slag them. I have a sample platter that went through the torch process, and the warping of the remnant aluminum base is quite evident.
So you've sold your car and will no longer use and plastic (petroleum - oil) products? You do realize how many things you use are based on plastic right? Personaly I'd recommend a good ass for it's world renown cargo capacity. Excellent off road capability, doesn't eat too much compared to an elephant, but does still produce global warming emissions out the exhaust pipe. Careful though, or people passing by might confuse you with the ass.
Unfortunately this list is politicaly charged, in many cases blatantly made up, and frankly, a list of non-stories. As someone quite opposed to censorship, I was very dissapointed to not see any censored stories. These people are giving the anti-censorship movement a bad name.
/. reader usage, but to the list creators. I realize I am harsh here, but to use the mantle of censorship exposure to touts personal political opinions that have nothing to do with censorship ticks me off.
My counters are not to the poster that put them here for
#1: Is this any different than the "Progressive" plan for global dominance? Second Superpower ring a bell to anyone? All political idealogues want to dominate everyone's politics, laws and morals.
#2: This is censored? Most days I have trouble finding news coverage that doesn't cover "Homeland Security".
#3: Which Iraqi report? I'm fairly sure with the war and all that the US has probably had hundreds, if not thousands of reports generated on Iraq. Chances are pretty good that most of them have been edited, just like my own reports for college were.
#4: How this can be anything other than propaganda I don't know. Are we supposed to go back to ignoring them like we did under Clinton? USS Cole, Embassies in Africa, Apartment buildings, 9/11 were all results of non-action about terrorists.
#5: We finally have something that has a gain of credibility. Unfortunately this story is out of date by over a century. Since anti-union measures have been reported by the media, it's not censorship.
#6: This is so ambigous as to be meaningless. Are we referring to library filters? That was certainly reported. What about DRM attempts by big business? Disney's attempts were promptly squashed in Congress when the people got hold of that attempt.
#7: Hm, the only treaty we "Busted" was the one that kept us from developing an anti-missle defense. And that one was busted with full notice to Russia. It also made worldwide news for months - thus not censored. Perhaps there referring to Kyoto which we have never approved?
#8: These are illegal? Says who? Not only that, but I certainly heard about their use, so it's not censored.
#9: West of China, North of Pakistan, East of Iran, South of Turkmenistan, South of Uzbekistan, and South of Tajikistan. Perhaps they need an atlas?
#10: Really, near as I can tell most of the world is content to ignore Africa, and I can't think of anybody who would want to invade it. I'm also not aware of any countries setting up colonies anywhere, much less Africa. I will give though that a story broke about China and India talking about colonizing the moon in a decade, but that's a pretty long ways from Africa.
#11: What massacare? We seem to be giving them pretty good treatment compared to the other countries they could face and they know it. Even the ones released from Guantameno have told people that.
#12: There have been some stories about corporate right to free speach that made the news (Telemarketers are suing over do not call list), so how is this censored? As for Corporate Personhood, that story is more than a few years old, and certainly made the news.
#13: Would this be the green self deactiving landmines they are developing or the lead free bullets that are being developed? How about the next generation HUMVEE which will be a hybrid - our best chance of getting real Hybrid technology researched for the masses?
#14: I've heard of a lot of unwanted refugess trying to get into Britain, Australia and the US - hey aren't those the evil bad repressive countries?
#15: Really, I recall the failed military couple making worldwide news. Bush was behind it? Is this like the CIA distributing crack in poor neighborhoods to make sure Blacks are repressed?
#16: We finally have a real reference. I hope they have some facts to back this up, their not batting very good so far, and
Their customers are now the entertainment industry. You'll note that they did not refer to the OEM's as being the customers. What this means is that the the entertainment industry has done an end run on the computer industry. By becoming the BIOS companies primary customers, they dictate what gets made, and they dictate DRM. Now your operating system is irrelevant, because the BIOS itself trumps any OS. I wouldn't be surprised to find out they they have already been shipping this discreetly to avoid a last minute splurge of DRM free equipment.
Here is a picture of the script kiddie to photoshop. Enjoy :)
This is more of an issue if you are in fields like medical, defense, and other such data / privacy oriented environments. Agree to a EULA that lets a third party monitor data on your computer in these environments and you could conceivably go to prison if not get sued. The factory images can't be trusted, and are always unsuitable to business use. As a result most business or government systems are imaged before ever being put into use.
The other problem is the license agreements are forced to be agreed to blindly without an option to decline. It would be different if the message on boot brought you sequentially through all software liceneses, with an opportunity to decline and still use the hardware. Afterall, it's the hardware that I'm buying, especially if I want to use Linux. The license agreements may be commonplace and ignored, but unfortunately there also presently considered legally enforceable contracts. Makes me wonder when someone will prove a point on this by making a license that requires the turnover of a persons' estate when they die.