Microsoft is certainly a big target, isn't it?

Peking University student Lu Feng believes that Microsoft's newly launched "WGA Notification" program violates his safety of personal information and his privacy. He decided to bring both Microsoft Corporation and Microsoft (China) Co. Ltd. before the court, and recently the First Intermediate People's Court of Beijing accepted this case.

Lu Feng's indictment stated that he installed the "WGA Notification" program according to the prompts of the automatic update of the Windows XP system. Later he found that this is a program to verify whether the Windows XP installed in the computer of the plaintiff is genuine software or not. The defendant, Microsoft, could gather the computer information and personal information of the plaintiff through executing this program on a regular basis and sending it back to Microsoft Corporation online. This method could not only verify whether the users' software is original or not but also obtain all kinds of information from the users.

My reaction: this is another one of those stupid little cases that will result in little or nothing but get a lot of attention in certain quarters. If I was the corporate communications guy at Microsoft, I would be really pissed off at this kid. However, in-house counsel shouldn't worry too much.

Some background: China.org, Computerworld, PC World, TechDirt.