Microsoft continues to use its weight to muscle Windows Enthusiasts which are liberal in there content in terms of downloads and software covered by non-disclosure agreements. In the latest incident of Microsoft muscling sites which it deems to have unfavourable content in terms of leaks windows site Windows XP.nu is being threatened by legal action by dutch lawyers acting on the behalf of the US software giant.
Microsoft is threating a lawsuit under the guise that the site violates international copyright laws and that visitors could potentially confuse the site with the official windows xp site.
The sites proprietor steven bink heard the news earlier today via a fax from Microsoft's lawyers KVDL demanding that he hand over the domain or face legal action.
Arguably you can see microsoft's point of view, the site uses Microsoft created graphics and undeniably uses the windows xp trademark in the domain name. However how microsoft has approached the matter is a little heavy handed. Instead of approaching the site's webmaster they just called in the lawyers straight away rather than calling in peter anaman (MS's internet enforcer - who looks after microsoft's interests on the internet as for as third party sites are concerned) like they usually do.
This brings into question...is this the only reason microsoft is pursuing this course of action? After all windowsxp.nu has "leaked" betas of microsoft software in the past.
The whole thing brings into question the amount of power microsoft has over internet websites which in the software giants opinion (but not in my or neowin's opinion) at least are damaging.
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