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Lenovo to pay $7.3M for installing adware in laptops

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Re: Lenovo to pay $7.3M for installing adware in laptops

#71

Post by mosselman »

mosselman wrote: post #61
simfoo wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no legitimate Windows licenses that only cost 10€. They may activate but successful activation does not imply that you are not breaching Microsofts license agreement and they may decide to deactivate those licenses at any time

This seems like ebay's problem. Why are they not shut down for this? If I came across some software on e-bay, I'd assume it was legit. I just checked ebay and it is full of windows keys. How am I, as a consumer, supposed to know that this is 'illegal'?

Commenting as a reaction would help more than just downvoting of course, because I am still not seeing how, as a consumer, I am supposed to know that those are illegal keys. Other platforms that facilitate fraud on this scale are always forced to take action, yet ebay gets away with it. I am wondering why that is.

Re: Lenovo to pay $7.3M for installing adware in laptops

#74

Post by chmod775 »

ekianjo wrote: post #29
paranoidrobot wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This descends pretty quickly into politics, but Nationalised infrastructure should be managed by a government organisation who's goal is to deliver a quality product at (or slightly above) cost. These organisations in turn report to the executive government of the day, who's interests should be aligned with that of the citizens they were elected to represent.

Nationalized infrastructure is a good way to create poor service, and a long lasting debt. Look at pretty much every country in Europe with national railtracks and rail lines: massively bleeding money, with worse and worse service and low levels of investements because there is no incentive to do so.

Other comments already pointed out counter-examples from the UK etc., so let me give you a German one:

The Berlin public transport system was running perfectly fine until it was privatized. Now the infrastructure is starting to degrade, it's gotten less punctual by objective metrics and it has also gotten much more expensive. The new owners are basically just milking the ever living hell out of it because they know they can.

It's gotten so bad there's now a lot of talk that it should be nationalized again.

Re: Lenovo to pay $7.3M for installing adware in laptops

#75

Post by MikusR »

raxxorrax wrote: post #60
namdnay wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then I got a 10€ Windows 10 key from ebay A rather unfair comparison, don't you think? That's like saying "I got a really good deal on a Macbook, all I had to do was pick it up and sprint out of the Apple store!"

Considering the quality and the fact that Win10 actually serves you adds and sells telemetry information, I think the price should be even lower. The consumer has the responsibility to check the validity of the product, sure, but this is ridiculously unfeasible for digital licenses. A lot of companies actually do buy these 10$ keys and I don't blame them.

Any source on them selling telemetry data?

Re: Lenovo to pay $7.3M for installing adware in laptops

#76

Post by shash7 »

gniv wrote: post #13

So, somewhat offtopic. I'd like to buy some tablets as presents and the Lenovo ones seemed well rated for the price. Are there others that are made by a, umm, nicer company? I'm looking for cheap and reliable rather than performant.

Maybe give chromebooks a spin? Or pair up an ipad with a portable keyboard.

Re: Lenovo to pay $7.3M for installing adware in laptops

#77

Post by pizza234 »

mosselman wrote: post #61
simfoo wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no legitimate Windows licenses that only cost 10€. They may activate but successful activation does not imply that you are not breaching Microsofts license agreement and they may decide to deactivate those licenses at any time

This seems like ebay's problem. Why are they not shut down for this? If I came across some software on e-bay, I'd assume it was legit. I just checked ebay and it is full of windows keys. How am I, as a consumer, supposed to know that this is 'illegal'?

The same way you're supposed to know if a bike is stolen. If the given market is grey/shady and the price is excessively low, and you really want to know, you ask (for starters).

Re: Lenovo to pay $7.3M for installing adware in laptops

#78

Post by na85 »

jldugger wrote: post #38
tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article mentions another $7M worth of fines, and that's just for the US. Also, they sold their customers pretty cheap, so the combined fines likely significantly exceed the profit from the deal: https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2015/02/27/lenov... While I do think the punishment should be significantly more severe (including jail time for executives), I suspect the scandal has made companies aware that…

> I still don't get why it didn't hurt them more in the enterprise space (read: why large companies didn't institute a strict "no lenovo" policy for a couple years). That would have been way more effective than fines. Using vendor OS images is a rookie mistake in the first place.

Wasn't their shitty bios rewriting parts of windows? Vanilla OS images won't save you there.

Re: Lenovo to pay $7.3M for installing adware in laptops

#79

Post by NullPrefix »

pizza234 wrote: post #77
mosselman wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like ebay's problem. Why are they not shut down for this? If I came across some software on e-bay, I'd assume it was legit. I just checked ebay and it is full of windows keys. How am I, as a consumer, supposed to know that this is 'illegal'?

The same way you're supposed to know if a bike is stolen. If the given market is grey/shady and the price is excessively low, and you really want to know, you ask (for starters).

You could apply the same low price is stolen goods argument during black Friday too.

Re: Lenovo to pay $7.3M for installing adware in laptops

#80

Post by mcintyre1994 »

SmellyGeekBoy wrote: post #63
xanipher wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the Japan railway system was built by the state and privatized later.

Building it isn't the difficult part, keeping it running efficiently is. See: Britain.

Not too sure what you're getting at, but the only part of Britain's rail network that runs acceptably is TFL which isn't privatised.
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