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Windows Microsoft The Courts

Microsoft Faces Two New Lawsuits Over Aggressive Windows 10 Upgrade Tactics 105

Posted by msmash from the growing-pain dept.
Microsoft is facing two more lawsuits over its Windows 10 upgrade tactics. The first lawsuit comes from U.S. District Court in Florida, where the company has been accused of violating "laws governing unsolicited electronic advertisements" The suit, PCWorld reports, says Microsoft's tactics are against the FTC's rules on deceptive and unfair practices. The second lawsuit was filed last month in Haifa, Israel alleging that Microsoft installed Windows 10 on users' computer without their consent. It's similar to another recent lawsuit that was filed against Microsoft in which the Redmond company had to pay a sum of $10,000. The company, however, believes that these new lawsuits won't succeed. In a statement to The Seattle Times, the company said:We believe the plaintiffs' claims are without merit and we are confident we'll be successful in court.
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Microsoft Faces Two New Lawsuits Over Aggressive Windows 10 Upgrade Tactics More

Microsoft Faces Two New Lawsuits Over Aggressive Windows 10 Upgrade Tactics

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  • Fuck MS (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sexconker ( 1179573 ) on Thursday July 28, 2016 @03:29PM (#52601707)

    Fuck MS. Mod +5 Insightful because you know it's true and no more needs to be said on the matter.

    • Re:Fuck MS (Score:5, Insightful)

      by npslider ( 4555045 ) on Thursday July 28, 2016 @03:32PM (#52601733)

      How much does a judge cost these days?

      • For Microsoft and equivalent, mere pennies.. And even that is figured into the cost of their products and services. So, in effect, they are free, as in beer.

        For the rest of us, *if you have to ask*, you know the rest... We can't even buy a cop.

      • Re:Fuck MS (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Darinbob ( 1142669 ) on Thursday July 28, 2016 @04:51PM (#52602293)

        Doesn't matter. Remember that they lost big in the EU, only got a slap on the wrist for it, and delayed complying with the court orders for so long that the punishment was moot. Microsoft laughs at your puny courts.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by rtb61 ( 674572 )

        So which is more profitable for the judge, to get a percentage from those successfully suing M$ again and again and again (keeping in mind how much money is up for grabs, enough to pay for tens of thousands of successful claims) or taking token one time political support from M$. Keeping in mind this is not a local issue but a global one and from the M$ point of view - 'Ohh fuck, Ohh fuck, Ohh fuck, the civil suit bubble is about to burst', keep in mind M$ has many competitors with equally deep pockets and

    • Wow; I suppose even a complete assh^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H broken clock gets it right every now and then...

    • Management at Microsoft seems wildly incompetent. It wasn't only Slashdot comment posters who called former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer Monkey Boy [businessinsider.com].

      Quote from an article in Forbes Magazine [forbes.com] about Steve Ballmer: "Without a doubt, Mr. Ballmer is the worst CEO of a large publicly traded American company today."

    • Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)

      by kheldan ( 1460303 )
      If your computer was a self-driving car, what Microsoft is doing is more or less the equivalent of them arbitrarily saying "We want your destination to be {arbitrary location}, not where you said you wanted to go, because we run your car and we'll do as we please."
      This is why Microsoft must be brought to heel: you own your computer, regardless of what OS has been on it, and it is not, nor has it ever been, Microsoft's prerogative to decide whether you 'upgrade' or not, install patches or not, or anything el

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by donaldm ( 919619 )

      Fuck MS. Mod +5 Insightful because you know it's true and no more needs to be said on the matter.

      Well this is all well and good but saying that to corporation is effectively like talking to a brick wall and I think the brick wall will be more responsive.

      What are YOU going to do about Microsoft's questionable methods of installing Windows 10 and how all settings are turned on by default?

      Do you:

      1. Mumble allot about Big Brother but still put on your gold plated chains?
      2. Install a non-Microsoft operating and then bitch because "It's not what I am used too", then go back to "1"?
      3. Install a non-Mi

      • What are YOU going to do about Microsoft's questionable methods of installing Windows 10 and how all settings are turned on by default?

        I cannot control what businesses do. I can only control what I do. So although I have had to learn how to troubleshoot Microsoft OS installs for support purposes - and there are a metric fuckton of 'em - I'm 99 percent on Unix and Unixy Operating systems now, and lovin' it. Fortunately they have almost no issues, so I have time to fix the problems du jour in the Microsoft boxes.

  • And the reason being... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by npslider ( 4555045 ) on Thursday July 28, 2016 @03:31PM (#52601723)

    "We believe the plaintiffs' claims are without merit and we are confident we'll be successful in court."

    Primarily due to the courts computers running Windows...

  • I miss baghdad bob memes (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    They would be so perfect for Microsoft's situation. Perhaps a baghdad balmer?

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      Baghdad Bob + Microsoft Bob:

      "It looks like you're trying to sue us. The lawsuit has no merit. But, you want help bribing a judge for us, in case. Yes, you do. Trust me; it's in your family's best interest..."

    • Inside the Microsoft Empire Public Relations Studio:

      "Everything is perfect, we are in complete control of our computers"

      ** As Blue Screens of Denial pop up one by one filling the entire screen, including the broadcast itself.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sconeu ( 64226 )

        I believe you mean this...

        "Everything is perfect, we are in complete control of our^H^H^H^HYOUR computers"

        • Re:I miss baghdad bob memes (Score:4, Funny)

          by npslider ( 4555045 ) on Thursday July 28, 2016 @04:37PM (#52602185)

          I wanted to type that, but my Microsoft Digital Assistant advised against it, even threatened to encrypt my files if I misspoke.

          What I wanted to say was tha^^^ NO CARRIER

          • Jeezus! You're still accessing slashdot via MODEM?!?!

            • It does slow down my page load time, but there are never any overage fees!

            • That's probably why he runs windoze... he accidentally bought a winmodem.

    • Their tartoor lawsuit has no merit, and we have them surrounded. I'm not afraid, and you don't be afraid. There are no settlements in Redmond, I assure you!

      We are in control. They are in a state of hysteria. Losers, they think that by filing lawsuits and trying to distort the feelings of the people they will win. I think they will not win, those bastards.

      They should surrender or be burned in their upgrades.

      I have detailed information about the situation...which completely proves that what they allege are il

  • Why do they even seek comment? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Lendrick ( 314723 ) on Thursday July 28, 2016 @03:39PM (#52601797) Homepage Journal

    I mean, what's MS going to say? 'We believe this case has a lot of merit and we're probably going to lose'?

    • Agreed. What company will keep an attorney that says "Our client screwed up, and we are trying to bail them out, and we're not optimistic about their chances."

      • Corporations also don't keep around attorneys who point out that company policies are clearly illegal and may lead to future lawsuits or criminal actions. Lawyers are there to say YES when asked to do so.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Decent corporate lawyers aren't just yes men. One of their bigger purposes is to tell a company what might lead to lawsuit and how much that lawsuit will cost them. They then weigh this against the potential profit of the action and decide whether to proceed.

          • And when the company decides the profit is greater than the cost of the lawsuit? Is the corporate attorney going to stand up and say "the case has merit and my company did the wrong thing, it's just that we made a bunch of money from it so we don't care"? I don't know about you, but I'd be willing to bet that they're *still* going to stand up there and say the case has no merit, despite have predicted the lawsuits well before the decision was made to proceed anyway.

      • Agreed. What company will keep an attorney that says "Our client screwed up, and we are trying to bail them out, and we're not optimistic about their chances."

        In fact, that would be legal malpractice, as a violation of the Duty to Zealously Defend the Client.

    • Re:Why do they even seek comment? (Score:5, Informative)

      by vux984 ( 928602 ) on Thursday July 28, 2016 @05:22PM (#52602523)

      Why do they even seek comment?

      The reason is "journalistic integrity",

      Yes, we all know that the MS mouthpiece is going to respond with some useless boilerplate, but its Journalism 101 to seek comments and responses to all parties when writing stories about them.

      It provides for fairness, letting the company have its say (even if it is boilerplat); and also supports journalism principles for verification and accuracy. For example, Microsoft could have responded ...'No, your facts are wrong. They haven't actually served us with any lawsuit yet."... or "No. They have already settled out of court; and are under a non-disclosure about the terms." or disputed/corrected any number of other facts or details about the case, that they wish.

      If the journalist has all the facts 100% right, and the company really has no positive spin for it, then yeah, you'll get a boilerplate... "we beleive this case has no merit."

      But its a good sign that the journal article reached out for a comment, and even better that they got one and printed it.

    • 'tis nothing but a flesh wound......

    • Journalistic ethics requires asking for a comment from them before publishing their laundry, even when they're obviously not going to talk about it.

  • Class-Action? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Thursday July 28, 2016 @03:47PM (#52601869) Journal

    There's gotta be a lot of others impacted. A Yuuuuge class-action lawsuit may be in order. A law firm could advertise, asking about those affected, and collect the claims together.

    • Wouldn't it be funny to see a court order as part of the damages that Micro$oft must support Windows 7 in perpetuity?

      • Re:Class-Action? (Score:5, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 28, 2016 @04:23PM (#52602091)

        Having them support it in perpetuity would be unfair.

        What would be fair is having them support Windows 7 until its copyright expires.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward

          What would be really fair is forcing them to open source XP. A user supported fully 64 bit XP (that was able to run all 32 bit programs and drivers) would wipe the floor with anything they've produced since.

          As a bonus all the "no longer supported but perfectly working hardware" could still be run too. Windows 7 and beyond shit on a lot of perfectly good, expensive, hardware.

          Me, I'm hoping for ReactOS to get to the point it can run te drivers for some of my older hardware. That would be the ideal solution

      • Re:Class-Action? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Stan92057 ( 737634 ) on Thursday July 28, 2016 @04:28PM (#52602115)
        Ive thought about that a lot and i really believe MS should support all their OS...security wise .Allowing hundreds of millions of PCs to go un patched security wise is a national security issue..Win 7 been out for how long and still every month their is a new security patch and just because its old and they are tired of supporting it..i say too bad, they released a product that was a security nightmare,and continues to be one. Plus this PC i own can run win 7 forever really. if they don't want to then they should be forced to open the code so it can be fixed. that's my opinion anyways
        • Or they consider Win 10 to be the patch. The free-upgrade period ending kind of undermines that claim. They should leave the option open indefinitely. Then they can simply say, "Yes we are supporting Windows 7, the support is to apply the patch that upgrades to Win 10 and beyond at no cost to you."

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Zocalo ( 252965 )

      A law firm could advertise, asking about those affected, and collect the claims together.

      Bonus points if they can get the advert posted to the Windows 10 start menu...

    • A law firm could advertise, asking about those affected, and collect the claims together.

      I can hear Robert Vaughn [youtube.com] already. "Upgrade to Windows 10? Tell them you mean business!

  • MS keeps breaking the machines of elderly people (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 28, 2016 @03:50PM (#52601901)

    On Monday I had to repair yet another Win7 computer, where Win10 installation had started without user consent and had broken the system. In practice the Win10 installer had created a new user (without real name, just a random UUID) and removed the ownership and write permissions from the computer owner users home directory tree. Unsurprisingly all the applications, including Windows explorer failed to function properly. It seems that current applications just ignore any file IO errors without any indication or hint to user what operation did not work.

  • I foresee this to be just the beginning. As long as people can continue to stick with Windows 7, there won't be *that* much of an uproar, but once support expires and companies are faced with being forced to upgrade to Enterprise edition cause Microsoft has mutilated the consumer editions so badly, there will be a reckoning.

    • Re:Just the beginning (Score:4, Interesting)

      by imidan ( 559239 ) on Thursday July 28, 2016 @04:45PM (#52602251)
      I own three computers running Windows 7 at the moment. For my primary desktop, I bought a new hard drive and installed Windows 10 on it to check it out. I didn't hate it, but I was left asking why I would bother upgrading when there is no killer feature of Windows 10 that seems to make it better than 7? Then I got busy, and I put the Windows 7 drive back in because I needed to get stuff done and not waste time configuring a new OS. I've been thinking of switching back recently, but then all this news comes out about not being able to disable Cortana or lock screens or apps... They almost had me, but now I'm going to continue putting it off.
  • It is easier to ask forgiveness than permission. In this case forgiveness will likely be some bad press and inconsequential fines. However the door is open, the maidenhead breached.

  • Pointless (Score:3)

    by frovingslosh ( 582462 ) on Thursday July 28, 2016 @04:23PM (#52602085)
    This is pointless. Microsoft already owns enough lawmakers and judges so that they can do whatever they want. As to any class action joke, Microsoft would end up giving the legal firm a token few million dollars and the members of the class would end up with coupons for "free" upgrades to Windows 10.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by donaldm ( 919619 )

      This is pointless. Microsoft already owns enough lawmakers and judges so that they can do whatever they want. As to any class action joke, Microsoft would end up giving the legal firm a token few million dollars and the members of the class would end up with coupons for "free" upgrades to Windows 10.

      You are dead right. There is only one way to hurt Microsoft and that is not to use their products and somehow I can't see most people doing that.

  • are worthy of a class action lawsuit if some attorneys can dig up enough disgruntled windows users that had win10 upgrades cause them enough problems
  • People has been sheepish on this topic up to now. The "Ghost" upgrades I've had reported boggle my mind. For one thing, there are changes to the EULA regarding what Microsoft is allowed to collect (and put in) to your computer and since it's automated, there was no actual consent to these changes done by any human being, which I believe if tested by the courts, would prove to be illegal due to lack of "meeting of the minds" because the owner was not present to read it during the automatic upgrade. Wonder wh
  • What I want to know is where the button is for disabling the installation of new and "popular" apps from the store.
    I do NOT want my machine to download all kinds of shit wasting a metered connection for me to keep uninstalling again every week...

    • What I want to know is where the button is for disabling the installation of new and "popular" apps from the store.

      Lo, there isn't one. How DARE you attempt to interfere with Microsoft's control of their PC??

      -

      I do NOT want my machine to download all kinds of shit wasting a metered connection for me to keep uninstalling again every week...

      Then it's time to switch to Linux, or possibly Apple, because you sure as shit won't have any control over the matter while you're running Windows.

    • I've yet to see windows install any "new and popular" app from the store that I didn't choose to install. What apps are you talking about?
      • It installed candycrush 2 times in a row (new versions) as well as two messanging apps.
        Just now it added "Windows DVD player", listing it under recently added.
        It was not there 3 hours ago and bandwith meter shows it did indeed use a hunk of data about 1 hour ago.

        The fun thing is, the dvd player app is not free, and if you start it you are told to pay for it. Needless to say, on a metered connection it has already cost money in bandwidth, before I made any conscious decision to install it.

      • I finally found this:
        http://winaero.com/blog/fix-wi... [winaero.com]

        So there isn't a button, but at least there's a way!

        • Cool, good find. Saw your other response as well, and I haven't seen such behavior and find the CC game very suspicious. But I can see that being a problem on a metered connection. (the Windows DVD I could see being counted as part of Windows that needed to be added, but as it's a paid app that is suspicious!)

  • "In a statement to The Seattle Times, the company said: We believe the plaintiffs' claims are without merit and we are confident we'll be successful in court."

    Said every lawyer ever born, even when they know for a fact that their client is as guilty as sin.

    They'd say this if their client was caught on national TV red-handed murdering someone in the middle of the street at high noon with the entire country watching.

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