This week we wrote about DieselScripts wich phomeprocedure did send databasecredentials and this time it’s time for Microsoft to explain how their phonehomeprocedure works. It looks like WGAN phones home daily, what alarmed Lauren Weinstein to say WGAN is spyware. Microsoft disputes that notion. It said that WGA’s regular call home is innocent and done for necessary maintenance purposes.

“The WGA Notifications program checks a server-side configuration setting to determine if WGA should run or not,” a company representative said in an e-mailed statement. “As part of the pilot, this gives Microsoft the ability to disable the program if necessary.”

MS is saying that no data is exchanged but the users ip-address is send to MS.
MS, whose using a different definition of spyware defends itself from these charge by refering to the fact that they ask permission before installation. It does however acknowledged that they have to give more information in their EUALA.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 9th, 2006 at 11:50 and is filed under Windows. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.