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Microsoft Backtracks on phone home WGA ...

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Carol Haynes:
Microsoft to ease up on piracy check-ins
By Joris Evers, CNET News.com

Microsoft is cutting the cord on its antipiracy tool.

The software maker this month plans to update the Windows Genuine Advantage Notifications program so that it only checks in with Microsoft once every two weeks, instead of after each boot-up, a company representative said Friday. By year's end, the tool will stop pinging Microsoft altogether, the representative said.

The changes come after a critic likened the antipiracy tool to spyware. He found that the program, designed to validate whether a copy of Windows has been legitimately acquired, checks in with Microsoft on a daily basis. Microsoft did not disclose in any of its documentation that the application would phone home.

Microsoft earlier this week had vowed to better disclose the actions of WGA Notifications. Now the company says it will gradually let go of the program once it is installed on Windows PCs.
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For the full article see: http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-6082334.html?tag=nl.e550

Josh:
I dont really consider this "backtracking" but more updating the check to a more reasonable time. However, i still see the privacy advocates crying afoul of microsoft for this still being unneeded and a privacy violation.

Carol Haynes:
By year's end, the tool will stop pinging Microsoft altogether, the representative said.
--- End quote ---

I think that is back tracking! Though why they have to wait until the end of the year ...

Josh:
Statement withdrawn! That is very much backtracking although in the past article they said they would make this check permanent at the end of its testing period. Guess microsoft gave in.

mouser:
i think this is a good example of why we should be thankful for all the people who raise hell at these drm/privacy/datacollection/phonehome things.

even though you might think they sometimes get carried away and scream bloody murder about issues that you might think "hmm.. that's not so bad, i can live with that", i think it's these little fights that keep us from being overrun with this stuff.  without these small fights i can only imagine how far the line would have shifted by now in the other direction.

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