A case started in a Washington district court suing Microsoft over its Windows XP Genuine Advantage program. The class action alleges that the WGA was dramatically expanded in April 2006 and altered the means which the program delivered, "violating the law".

Instead of identifying the WGA as an anti-piracy download option, Microsoft is alleged to have described the program as a high priority update, without giving users an explanation of what the program was or would do on computers.

WGA, the filing continued contains two components - a Notification program that identified if a copy of the OS was legit, and a validation component that collected information from computers and sent it back to Microsoft. An additional component, it's alleged, has a phone home function, which relays information about PCs on a daily basis.

"Microsoft hid, misrepresented and/or failed to disclose the true nature, features, and functionality of the WGA software to consumers. Contrary to the express statements Microsoft made in the inadequate disclosures that were provided, the software collected and communicated private identifying information from consumer's computers and sent that information back to Microsoft on a daily basis," the filing said.

Read the entire article at TG Daily.