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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

#61

Post by mosselman »

simfoo wrote: post #44
jhoh wrote: post #37

I recently was asked by my girlfriends sister to help her choose a laptop. After finding a model that looked good spec-wise I searched for that same model but without Windows pre-installed. It was 150€ cheaper. Then I got a 10€ Windows 10 key from ebay, installed O&O ShutUp and Winaero Tweaker and now it almost feels like a great system that you can actually work with. Vendor-bloatware has been bad since Windows 7 bu…

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'?

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

#62

Post by SmellyGeekBoy »

krylon wrote: post #40
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 suspect the scandal has made companies aware that this is a bad idea. I kind of wonder how many people were like, "pre-install adware on PCs? Why didn't I think of that?!?"

Hasn't this kind of thing been going on for years though?

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

#63

Post by SmellyGeekBoy »

xanipher wrote: post #46
ekianjo wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. Numerous private train companies in Japan.

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.

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

#64

Post by SmellyGeekBoy »

dawnerd wrote: post #14
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.

So what's your price range? Ipads were down to 249 which I'd consider pretty darn cheap.

"Some" tablets implies more than 2, that's an awful lot of money to spend on presents.

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

#65

Post by throwaway932 »

mogadsheu wrote: post #2

Seems like a small fine, compared to the potential financial benefit of that installation. Hopefully it serves as a deterrent for future adware installs. If not, maybe we start calling our lawmakers. For those of you in the adware space, would you pay >$10 per head to install your adware onto a computer? My guess is absolutely.

Small? It's negligible, and acts like the opposite of a deterrent: it's an implicit authorization.

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

#67

Post by hannob »

lamlam wrote: post #12

I'm always surprised that Lenovo use in the enterprise space didn't take a hit after all this came to light. I would have thought competitors like Dell and HPE would have used that opportunity to disparage Lenovo.

I mean Dell took the opportunity to do almost exactly the same thing shortly afterwards.

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

#68

Post by lmcarreiro »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #31
mogadsheu wrote: post #2

Seems like a small fine, compared to the potential financial benefit of that installation. Hopefully it serves as a deterrent for future adware installs. If not, maybe we start calling our lawmakers. For those of you in the adware space, would you pay >$10 per head to install your adware onto a computer? My guess is absolutely.

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…

Big companies usually already have their enterprise customized image of the OS, when they buy hardware, they are interested only in the hardware.

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

#70

Post by ionised »

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.

Not everything needs to make a profit. In fact it's better that some things don't.

And using European trains as an example of poor service is mind-boggling.

They are far, far better than the US or UK offerings (which are privatised, offer piss-poor service and are overpriced).

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