Quote:
Originally Posted by Neil
By the way, for those somehow defending Amazon by asking why aren't I bashing Sony all I can say is I guess it is because I don't know anything about Sony.
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Yeah, that kind of proves my point.
Sony has long been a defender of draconian DRM, proprietary formats and proprietary media; the former two are often criticisms of the Kindle.
Separately, a few years ago Sony added spyware to their audio CD's; put one in your Windows PC, and without your permission or knowledge it installed a bunch of software that, among other things, restricted your ability to burn certain Sony/BMG audio CDs. The spyware took many steps to hide itself and make it difficult to uninstall, which in turn provided a method for malware to hide itself on the effected machines. Eventually several anti-virus companies put the Sony rootkit onto their malware lists.
After much criticism and lawsuits, Sony released an uninstall tool... that installed an ActiveX control that removed a security feature -- thus allowing any site to install programs via ActiveX without restriction. While not a malevolent act, it was painfully sloppy and opened up a huge security hole.
And of course, as the operator of an MMORPG, Sony essentially "deletes content" all the time, most notably characters. Often this makes sense, as they are targeting gold farmers and possibly griefers. It's a necessary requirement for running a virtual world.
The point is not that "Sony's actions excuses Amazon's." It's that Sony's actions are the same if not far worse than Amazon's, yet a) some people on this board turn to Sony as though they were a protector of digital rights, which is absurd; and b) as egregious as they can be, clearly people forgot about it fairly quickly.