Is Microsoft spying on you?
HAVE you ever been to a department store or supermarket that goes through your bag to make sure you haven?t shoplifted? Necessary as it might be to stop shoplifters, I always felt as a consumer that such measures were inappropriate and reflected poorly on the stores. Such establishments might catch the odd shoplifter but they alienate thousands of legitimate customers who may never come back again.
Today, if you run Windows XP and you?ve got a live Internet connection, you?re being frisked at the gate. Worse, the security guard follows you home and reports back to the store at regular intervals. That?s because along with the system updates that are sent to you over the Internet, you?re also getting Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA), a tool that checks to see if you?re using a pirated copy of Windows then phones home to tell Microsoft about it. PCs found to be using pirated Windows wills top getting automatic updates and get on-screen warnings instead.
