Microsoft has been named in a second lawsuit over its antipiracy Windows Genuine Advantage program, which plaintiffs allege acts as "spyware" on their systems.
Engineered Process Controls, Univex and several other parties filed a class action lawsuit on Friday in US District Court in Seattle, alleging Microsoft installed "spyware" on their computers as a "critical security update." The suit comes days after another complaint containing similar allegations was filed in US District Court in Los Angeles.
In this most recent lawsuit, the parties allege Microsoft violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, the Consumer Protection Act, the Computer Spyware Act, and also engaged in intentional misrepresentation of the software program.
Microsoft, however, contends the two lawsuits do not present a fair picture of WGA.
"The two lawsuits appear to be similar in the claims and both are without merit," said Jim Desler, a Microsoft spokesman. "They distort our antipiracy program...and the harm piracy brings to Microsoft and to customers."
Although the WGA feature is designed to validate the authenticity of Windows software installed on a user's PC, it recently raised the ire of some users when Microsoft began delivering the WGA prerelease as a "high priority" item automatically built into Windows updates.
The software, which scans users' hardware and software for information such as their Internet Protocol address, was initially designed to transmit information back to Microsoft every time users booted up their computers. But the software giant has since scaled back the frequency of the transmissions to twice a month and informed users about ways to disable the WGA alerts.
I hope this class-action lawsuit snowballs into a tidal wave that forces microshaft to abandone WGA. Hope they shot themselves in the foot and it starts to rot to be exact.
And can someone in the media find out exactly what data is sent to microsoft? You all report it sends one thing or another but can anyone direct me to a list of exactly what is transmitted. I would like to know the entire structure of the transmission, unencrypted too, its frequency and its checksums...since I do operate a small business network and I am responsible for the data transmissions from our static IP.
It seems no one exactly knows and microshaft don't exactly supply the details i want, they just point me to the end user agreement and some documentation on their website that is truly vague to say the least.
In order for me (as network administrator) to protect our enterprise I need to monitor network activity on our network for maximum efficiency. Unexplained network packets being generated in our network is UNACCEPTABLE! Therefore I understand the companies that are starting these lawsuits. May many more follow if they ever knew what was running in their networks...
If there was a class-action here I'd add my name to it...but since Australia losts its balls years ago...i'd rather lay on the beach and bum out...