[Infowarrior] - Microsoft admits WGA update phones home

[Richard Forno]

Microsoft admits WGA update phones home
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/09/ms_wga_phones_home/

By John Oates → More by this author
Published Friday 9th March 2007 10:23 GMT
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Microsoft has admitted that the latest update to its Windows Genuine
Advantage program will phone back to Redmond even if the user clicks cancel.

WGA is meant to help Redmond fight piracy, but has been criticised on
privacy grounds and because previous versions have incorrectly labelled
people with genuine software as pirates.

But if you cancel the installation of WGA, maybe because you dislike the
privacy implications, the software will still phone home. Microsoft stresses
that WGA does not take any information which could identify you as an
individual, but is only used to collate statistics on WGA use.

Microsoft UK anti-piracy manager Michala Alexander said in a statement:

    The data collection and transfer in question are part of some of our
update download services, such as the Windows Update service. As with other
programs downloaded via these services, the success or failure of WGA
Notifications' installation is sent to Microsoft.

    If the user interrupts installation of WGA Notifications, we send the
number of the screen on which installation stopped (first, second, etc.). In
order to establish an accurate count, we also generate several globally
unique identifiers (GUIDs) that do not contain any personal information. We
use the GUIDs to tally the number of individual machines without identifying
the user. Other data sent includes user and machine language settings and
whether or not the machine was joined to a domain.

    We use the information collected to generate aggregate statistics that
help us improve the WGA user experience and quality of service.

    Protecting the privacy of our customer's information is very important
to Microsoft. That is why we have detailed what information is collected in
the Windows Update privacy statement. In addition, the Microsoft Genuine
Advantage privacy statement and the Windows Genuine Advantage Notifications
End User License Agreement describe this data collection. As documented in
these disclosures, the information collected is not used to identify or
contact the user.