You don't understand - Alastair_Houghton_882

This isn't how Windows gained all of the spyware that it currently has. Spyware's primary purpose is to gather personal information. It usually comes in the form of applications with little or no actual use, but that might be attractive to end users (e.g. screensavers, that sort of thing).

And we do respect users' privacy; not only do we have a privacy policy clearly visible on our website, but we're also subject to E.U. laws on the subject. Plus, it simply isn't true that catching someone stealing something is an infringement of their privacy... it's them doing something wrong, not us. If your argument was valid, then you should also be complaining about CCTV in banks infringing the privacy of bank robbers. Sounds stupid, doesn't it.

It shouldn't even be possible for the software to ever send information back to us, because nobody should have a copy of the full version of the software unless they have paid for it and have a valid registration key; the only way to trigger this code is to enter a pirated key. I truly don't see why you find this so difficult to understand. Let me emphasise again: this code should never be triggered. The effect of it would be absolutely nil, if people weren't pirating it. Plus, this approach doesn't inconvenience paying customers, unlike (say) product activation.

Finally, you acknowledge that piracy is a real problem... so why are you against this measure? Is it just a knee-jerk reaction because you've been told that you should be concerned about privacy, but haven't thought it through? Do you think we should use the Courts to get their identities somehow? (If so, how do you propose that we do this? We wouldn't have their IP addresses, let alone anything else, if it weren't for the product e-mailing us. Indeed, some P2P networks completely hide users' IP addresses from each other. And how do you justify the cost - approximately 170 times the cost of a single copy of our product, just to get a court order to identify one software pirate from their IP address? Remember, most of these people are probably teenagers, so there's a good chance that we wouldn't get our money back, even if we sued them.) Do you have a better suggestion? If so, we'd like to hear it.

In the meantime, this mechanism is quite an effective way to discourage software piracy. Unless someone comes up with a better way that actually works, we're unlikely to change our tactics.

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Sunday, February 06 2005 @ 03:08 AM PST

You are a pirate! - Superboy

You said "Because it's NEVER acceptable to transmit users personal info without their consent." That is UNRTUE It IS acceptable to transmit users' personal info without their consent if it is to prevent piracy. That would be like finding a robber's mobile phone with their address on it, and then asking them if they could keep it for evidence against them. The law states that it is illegal to transmit someone's personal details without their consent UNLESS it is to prevent piracy. So there you go. You are wrong. You would find no problem with this if you actually bought the software. I think that it is highly likely that you are a pirate that is annoyed because you can't enter a pirate serial number without being traced. iDefrag is great software. If you want to use it, buy it.

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Saturday, February 26 2005 @ 06:57 AM PST

anti piracy = anti consumer - haardt

Imagine there is something wrong the way the software decides if it has been stolen, either in programming or just the famous bad bit. Under that assumption a honest user who has paid would have to get rid of the measures some remotely paranoid software programmer would pull on him.

I recently had a $XXXXX presentation nearly blown by a $15 shareware. The software programmer deceided to bind the software registration to some hardware address. Unfunately my notebooks mainboard was replaced because of some hardware havoc. Instead of just working the way I paid for the software decided to need some kind of online verification vodoo - not exactly something great during a important meeting without any way to get some working internet connection.

In consequence I'll never (again) rely on software build to favor anything about the customers (my) matters.

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Wednesday, March 16 2005 @ 03:42 PM PST