Windows Upgrades Policy Raises a Piracy/Privacy Dilemma

Microsoft's new policy of scanning computers for illegal software when they contact the site for upgrades or downloads has upset privacy advocates. The policy is intended to fight software piracy, which the Canadian Alliance Against Software Theft says accounts for 36% of all software applications in use in Canada. Microsoft says that 35% of the software in use worldwide is counterfeit, at a cost to the software industry last year of $1 billion. Users of the estimated 100 million computers worldwide running illegal copies of the operating system will not receive the upgrades, and can only receive security patches. However, Microsoft has announced that it will give a free copy of Windows XP to customers who unknowingly bought an illegal version, so long as they fill out a piracy report, and send Microsoft the proof of purchase and the counterfeit CDs. Privacy advocates contend that the only information Microsoft needs to collect is the product key and the operating-system version, but Microsoft also collects data on the flow of information between the operating system and other hardware, such as printers. No personally identifiable data will be collected, says Microsoft, and information will remain completely anonymous. For the moment, this position has appeared to satisfy the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group that concentrates on technology issues. However, the issue may reemerge if and when the Microsoft data, which amounts to a fingerprint for each computer user, is later used to generate personally identifiable information. For an article from The Globe and Mail, see: http://makeashorterlink.com/?Q58D13A8B For Microsoft's statement on its data collection: http://update.microsoft.com/windowsupdate/v6/default.aspx?ln=en-us Summary by: Nyall Engfield