I sure wouldn't want to be in the marketing department at Sony or any of the anti-virus companies. For the last year and a half Sony has been secretely installing low level root kits into people listening to their music cd's on their computers. Which has infected more than 500,000 networks. And none of the anti-virus companies figured it out until it was widespread on blogs. And even then they don't want to offend Sony. This from Trend Micro just yesterday:
“We don’t blame Sony for attempting to exercise its right to
manage its digital property” says Genes. “However, what’s important to
understand is that this technology can now be used by malicious malware
writers to hide and spread their creations. These writers include those
who might not know how to write their own rootkits – but now they don’t
have to.”
Talk about kid gloves. So looks like all these guys are putting corporate relationships ahead of their customers. And Sony looks at distain to their customers "Most people don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?" Baaah!
Treating your customers like sheep is not a good policy. People are much better informed these days. And word gets around. Quickly. Always be transparent with your market about what you are doing and why. And if you stumble (like the anti-virus companies) it is much better to say "After this experience we'll be taking a much harder look Digital Rights Management".
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