Microsoft WGA gets less nagging but users still doubt

Stan Beer
Wednesday, 28 June 2006 21:44

Your IT - Home IT

Microsoft has responded to misgivings that users have expressed about its Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) program. However, rumours are now circulating about a possibly more ominous intrusion into their privacy by the software giant.

Last month, Windows users were up in arms about the revelation that WGA, once installed on computers, would phone home to Redmond servers on a daily basis. Whether the perception was real or just paranoid thinking, many users felt that Microsoft was in effect spying on them. For its part, Microsoft attempted to brushed off the criticism by saying that the phone home feature was temporary and only necessary in case Microsoft needed to shut down the feature en masse.

Well, as promised, Microsoft has now scaled back the phone home feature, so that it only contacts home base every couple of weeks, with the promise that eventually the phone home feature will be phased out altogether. However, there is now a rumour doing the rounds that Microsoft may use WGA to disable pirated versions of Windows.

Those of us using genuine copies of Windows should not worry - or should we? Some pundits have suggested that WGA may get it wrong on some occasions and disable computers running genuine copies of Windows. After all it is only a software program.