It isn’t just Microsoft that treats people this way. Every big company with significant lock-in potential pulls tricks on customers.
I just installed America Online’s Windows software, version 7.0, and found to my astonishment that it had slipped a URL pointing at an AOL server into my “Trusted Sites” section of Internet Settings. These are sites I’m supposed to trust never to do any damage to my computer or data.
I never gave AOL permission to do this. Why? Because I trust AOL about as much as I trust Microsoft, which is very little. So I removed the URL.
I asked AOL how and why that URL ended up in my settings. Why, I wondered, are users not even being asked permission?
Spokesman Andrew Weinstein tells me it’s entirely benign. The URL is there for a circumstance where a user has already downloaded the AOL installation software and goes to the download site again. AOL checks to see if AOl has already been installed or if the setup.exe file (or whatever AOL calls it) is there. If so, it tells you so you can avoid another large download, says Weinstein.
“It’s purely a user convenience issue,” he says, and insists that the URL is used for no other purpose.
Maybe so. But AOL could change its mind and use it for other purposes. And it’s still wrong for AOL to make a significant change to anyone’s Internet settings without notice.