I agree with the student. WGA is a lot more than just a VALID Software Checker. It gathers information about you, your system and so on; just as it states in the article. There is no reason that MS needs that information. They only need to know if the OS is valid, and then with strict limitations. They should only be able to assess the validity of the software, nothing more. That means no SPYWARE to inspect anything more than the OS. MS, gets away with it, because they own more than just property, they have a financial hold on America. If MS were to stop supporting, producing and providing the OS. America, and a good portion of the World would suffer, not just the loss of security updates. I am talking Financially. How many institutions do you go to, public and private, that use the MS OS? It is called a Monopoly, it is the most legal form of holding a person and people hostage there is. Those of us Windows Users who are branching out, looking for a replacement OS like LINUX/UNIX, Debian, Ubuntu and so on. Have great GUI OS programs, but they are not compatable with several programs and sites out there. Almost everything is written for Windows. There are a few that are written for APPLE/MAC and some LINUX/UNIX systems, but mainly Windows. MS basically OWNS US, because we let them get away with murder (figuratively speaking of course)! -Forest -