[ISN] Microsoft changes Windows XP online 'Product Use Rights'

From: InfoSec News (isnat_private)
Date: Thu Feb 14 2002 - 01:42:03 PST

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    Forwarded from: Leon Kuunders <leonat_private>
    
    Is it a new trend to change online license agreements? Have more
    companies done the same?
    
    -L.
    
    
    http://www.infoworld.com/articles/op/xml/02/02/11/020211opfoster.xml
    
    BILL GATES SAYS security is Microsoft's top priority, but just whose
    security does he have in mind? Consider some of Microsoft's recent
    boilerplate legalese -- language you or your company might already
    have unknowingly accepted -- and then decide for yourself.
    
    The language is contained in the Product Use Rights (PUR) document
    that can be found at www.microsoft.com/licensing/resources. As the PUR
    document is part of most customers' volume license agreements and is
    subject to periodic change, in theory Microsoft customers should check
    it regularly to see what rights Microsoft has decided to grant or take
    away.
    
    You can be forgiven if you feel like you have better things to do with
    your life than reading and rereading all this mind-numbing legal
    gobbledygook. Fortunately, one Microsoft customer did review the PUR
    document recently and noticed a change. In the section on Windows XP
    Professional, he found the "Internet-Based Services Components"
    paragraph that said in part, "You acknowledge and agree that Microsoft
    may automatically check the version of the Product and/or its
    components that you are utilizing and may provide upgrades or fixes to
    the Product that will be automatically downloaded to your Workstation
    Computer."
    
    The reader was stunned. "By changing that term in the PUR, Microsoft
    has found a creative way to obtain authorization from users to access
    their workstations at will," he said. "How many customers are going to
    review this PDF file and realize they've given Microsoft this right?
    And all the risk for the security and privacy violations due to this
    are neatly put on the customer's shoulders, not Microsoft's."
    
    
    
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