Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Microsoft Violates Customer Privacy

Microsoft has violated customer privacy once again by disconnecting gamers who are using modified systems from Xbox Live.

According to Microsoft a small percentage of people have violated terms of service by modifying their Xbox systems. How does Microsoft know this?

When one computer connects with another computer information is exchanged. In this case Microsoft has used their proprietary closed source technology to access information from customers computer systems without the customer understanding what information they were releasing.

This is a common issue. Most people are not aware of the breadth of information they are agreeing to release when they press the agree button on a a software license. Microsoft will argue that non-programmers/lawyers should fully understand the technical small print.

In the end Microsoft's argument does not matter. The User agreement does not matter. Microsoft used their proprietary, closed source technology to access specific data from users that did not want to share that specific information with Microsoft.

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