On Thursday 29 Mar 2012, Vickram Crishna wrote: > I think we are losing sight of what constitutes a service, and the > relationship between supplier and consumer. It is entirely true that > the service is free, but its users are still consumers. Do you think > that someone who serves free food at a public school is not liable > for the quality? > > I am frankly puzzled by the analogy (while I am not an apologist for > Google): somebody advising me about possible danger is a different > kettle of fish from somebody who blocks everyone from using a public > mountain road because rocks sometimes fall. > > As the article points out, Pirate Bay's service is also used by > perfectly honest individuals to publicize and offer their legal > artistic creations. Wherever there is free speech, there will be > people who abuse it, like the apocryphal Mexican discovered in > Jallandhar. That does not mean that free speech itself should be > ended.
At one end I agree with Sanjeev -- MS is providing a free service with clearly defined terms, and if you don't like the service or the terms you are welcome to choose another one. There are also some (either explicit or implicit) expectations that consumers have from the service. These expectations have been met by the service over many years, and consumers have come to depend on the service to achieve specific ends. Belying those expectations without notice is at the very least unethical, and may actually be grounds for a case in more lawyer-happy nations. Finally, if I were MS, I would show cases of malware being distributed over P2P links from pirate bay, and claim that I acted in good faith to protect my customers. Very knotty problem. Fortunately I don't use MS products or services, so I don't need to worry about their vagaries. And to tell the truth, I don't have much sympathy for people who do, either! Regards, -- Raj -- Raj Mathur || [email protected] || GPG: http://otheronepercent.blogspot.com || http://kandalaya.org || CC68 It is the mind that moves || http://schizoid.in || D17F _______________________________________________ network mailing list [email protected] http://lists.fosscom.in/listinfo.cgi/network-fosscom.in
