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Microsoft sparked fury when it aggressively pushed its Windows 10 operating system onto people's PCs – from unexpected downloads to surprise installations.
Now a consumer rights group has forced Redmond to promise it will never do it again, in Germany at least.
In 2015, Microsoft offered existing Windows 7 and 8 users a free upgrade to its new cloud-friendly OS, and rapidly become increasingly ambitious about getting it onto machines. After bundling the upgrade alongside its monthly security patches and resorting to tricky tactics, loads of users found they were downloading gigabytes of unwanted Redmond code.
This riled a lot of folks, but Germany – one of the few countries that takes consumer rights seriously – actually took action. The Consumer Center in Baden-Württemberg filed a cease-and-desist complaint against Redmond regarding the practice, and the software giant has unexpectedly caved and promised never to do it again.
"We would have wished for an earlier introduction, but the levy is a success for more consumer rights in the digital world," said Cornelia Tausch, CEO of the Center.
Source: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/08/23/microsoft_windows_10_updates_germany/
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 26 2017, @10:35AM (1 child)
Any computer that attempts mandatory updates is a machine you don't really own. Some would say that of all closed source software, but in this case, it takes it from the theoretical to the practical. Your computer will run whatever code the company wants you to, for good or for ill. Combined with Microsoft's telemetry and license agreement and fantastic stunts like updates uninstalling software Microsoft deems undesirable due to supposed incompatibility, they own any PC with Windows 10.
Hopefully this will spread to other countries. People have been lulled into a mindless delusion that all updates are inherently good. A lot of security "experts" have fallen all over themselves to parrot this same advice. I'm not sure if this is because the situation is just that bad or because it's the easy and trendy thing to do, but IMNSHO it's at best grossly irresponsible and lazy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 26 2017, @07:52PM
This whole thing is just more MicroFudge.. dazzle them with lunches, beer/wine and another 'agreement', while shafting the hell out of them in secret. Rinse and repeat for every country, local government, etc... it is the "MicroShaft Way".