Got a moment to catch up on my thousand unread blog posts and apparently the big deal this Easter weekend is the Apple Safari invasion of the Pristine Microsoft platform. As consumers, we just don’t know how to unclick the box that tries to offer us software we don’t want to use. That’s what brought on the entire spyware nightmares, isn’t it? Yet, we haven’t learned a thing in the past decade.

How dare a monopolistic company in control of online MP3 stores, MP3 players, computer platform use it’s muscle to force the users to install the software they don’t need, how dare they bundle it!?!? How dare they force me to install iTunes just to play Quicktime movies? How… dare… they treat us poor Microsoft users like this!?

Ok, I have to stop before the flood of insincerity drowns me.

This is not a matter of who started it first. That is called a precedent, a principle that is used to judge cases based on how they were ruled on in the past given similar circumstances.

When Microsoft pulled all of the above, and far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far worse they got away with the slap on the wrist. US DOJ had a chance to split Microsoft like a 80 pound tremor patient working a chainsaw. But they did not.

Microsofties, at least the ones I work with, do not quite see it that way. They feel that their prosecution was uncalled for, that it did not do anything for the consumer. What it did do was create the concept of Untrustworthy Computing, with millions of paranoid computer users that won’t even do so much as click on a button to install Windows updates. The same users that clicked on every popup and virus offered up are now so paralyzed with prompt fear that they don’t even keep their computers patched, resist new versions, ignore prompts and generally do not even read the screen anymore. It is primary Microsoft’s fault, the champion of “You don’t own the OS, you just lease the right to use it and you better like it how we tell you to use it or it’s going to cost you.” – why should Apple, or any other software publisher, behave any better if there is no penalty for disrespecting your customers?

Welcome to Untrustworthy Computing, which software update do you want to dodge today?

Microsoft’s official reply will be posted here in a few hours. Enjoy the fireworks kids!

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