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A Los Angeles resident wants class-action status for his lawsuit over the Windows Genuine Advantage check, and claims the software operates in violation of spyware laws.
Brian Johnson's filing with the US District Court in Seattle laid the groundwork for some miffed responses from Microsoft. The Seattle P-I reported on the interchange between plaintiff and defendant.
Johnson's suit accuses Microsoft of deceptively installing its software on user systems "without providing consumers any opportunity to make an informed choice" about its installation. The WGA check essentially phoned home to Microsoft each day whether a copy of Windows on a machine was genuine or not.
Accusations of the WGA check being spyware raised Microsoft's hackles. "Spyware is deceptive software that is installed on a user's computer without the user's consent and has some malicious purpose," Microsoft spokesman Jim Desler said in the report.
Microsoft responded to complaints about the software by providing instructions on disabling the WGA check on a system. It could be that Microsoft should not have permitted its distribution in the first place without better disclosure on its communications activity.
"The disclosure was slim to none, and it certainly isn't what we're looking for as a matter of public policy from a distinguished company like Microsoft," said Ben Edelman, noted spyware researcher, in the report.
Microsoft has updated and released a new version of the WGA software, which no longer performs the daily check. Since Microsoft sees WGA as a useful tool in its battles against the software piracy in claims costs the company an enormous amount of revenue, it isn't going away.
About
the Author:
David Utter is a business and technology writer with WebProNews.
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