Microsoft has vowed to better disclose the actions of its antipiracy tool once it is installed on Windows PCs. The tool, called Windows Genuine Advantage Notifications, is designed to validate whether a copy of Windows has been legitimately acquired. However, it also checks in with Microsoft on a daily basis, the company confirmed Wednesday. This has alarmed some people, such as Lauren Weinstein, a civil liberties activist, who likened it to spyware in a blog posting. Microsoft disputes that notion. It said that WGA's regular call home is innocent and done for necessary maintenance purposes. "The WGA Notifications program checks a server-side configuration setting to determine if WGA should run or not," a company representative said in an e-mailed statement. "As part of the pilot, this gives Microsoft the ability to disable the program if necessary." No meaningful data is exchanged during the check-in with Microsoft, which happens after a computer starts up, the software maker said. Regardless, the company does receive a user's IP address and a timestamp, Weinstein said in his blog posting. "We can argue about whether or not the tool's behavior is really spyware," Weinstein wrote on his blog Tuesday. The question is whether Microsoft has provided sufficient notice, he added. Microsoft acknowledged that it has not been forthcoming enough about the antipiracy tool's behavior, but countered that its tool is not spyware, since it is not installed without a user's consent and has no malicious purpose. Still, Microsoft is considering several options to make its actions clear to the user, including amending the software license, the company representative said. Microsoft launched WGA in September 2004 and has gradually expanded the antipiracy program. It now requires validation before Windows users can download additional Microsoft software, such as Windows Media Player and Windows Defender. Validation is not required for security fixes. Originally, people had to validate their Windows installation only when downloading additional Microsoft software. Since November last year, however, Microsoft has been pushing out the WGA Notifications tool along with security updates to people in a number of countries. The first time that a user runs WGA Validation to check if their version of Windows is genuine, the information sent to Microsoft is the Windows XP product key, PC maker, operating system version, PC bios information and the user's local setting and language. Microsoft discloses that this information is sent in the WGA tool license. Microsoft's antipiracy tool phones home daily | Tech News on ZDNet F*cking piece of shit. No wonder no one trusts MS. Attempting to uninstall the tool via add/remove with show updates is not possible. You can uninstall security patches, but not this huh? Classic spyware. Kill the wgatray.exe process and it restarts itself. How to dump Windows' piracy 'spyware'
The latest WGA program downloaded a few nights ago via Automatic updates. I hadn't turned on my Windows computer for so long I had a massive back catalog of new updates. As usual, I always choose 'customise my updates' rather then 'express install' so that I know exactly what's going onto my computer. As it happens, I noticed this little WGA program in the list and I stopped it from being installed :devil: I haven't got anything to hide as I am only running a 180 day free trial of Windows XP and Server 2003 for my MCSE. I just don't like the idea of Microsoft checking up on me. Someone I know wasn't so tech savvy and installed this new WGA checker. It pops up after every reboot and says something along the lines of 'This copy of Windows is pirated, please buy a new license'! Then a little star icon appears in the taskbar and won't go away!
Mine is legal (to a certain extent), so I have never seen the pop ups. I can't believe MS has abused my trust, I need to lie down.
There's nothing inheritly wrong with a company wanting to protect their products from theft. Same thing with the RIAA. If I create something and sell it, I don't want somebody making a copy of it and profiting off of it, or giving it away for free since that's profit down the tubes. What is the problem? How you go about it. I work at a retail store, and one thing I remember through the training they gave was to never assume who's a thief and who isn't. Don't ASSume someone, for whatever reason is a thief. If you start doing that, then anyone and everyone is a potential thief. Also, statistically, employee's are much more likely to steal than customers. Technically, Microsoft doesn't really owe notification on this. However, to look good, making a better attempt and informing the end user of this would go a long way. Every company should be keenly vested in it's profits, considering that's the main reason one goes into business in the first place. Just remember not to assume that the customer is a criminal.
It pays well to hate your customers and love your shareholders. It works for the RIAA, it works for McDonalds, it works for George Lucas, it worked for Phillip Morris for nearly a century and it works for Microsoft now. Being within your legal right to do something does not make it ethical nor does it make it justified, even if MS was concerned with legality (hint: they're not). But if companies like this can behave as such and get away with it, they will. Do you honestly think MS will lose any customers over this? Doubtful.
