Sony Canada has been hit with another class action suit arising from last year's rootkit fiasco. This suit is particularly interesting for a pair of reasons. First, it contains new allegations about Sony's conduct in Canada. In particular, it alleges:
- Sony released at least 34 titles in Canada with sales of approximately 120,000 CDs
- Sony waited two extra weeks to begin recalling CDs in Canada as compared to the United States
- Sony did not do enough to remove the CDs from store shelves. One of the named complainants purchased the CD on Boxing Day, weeks after the recall was announced and the complaint alleges that the CDs are still being sold.
Second, the complaint includes considerable analysis of Sony's alleged violation of both consumer protection and national privacy legislation. Given the analysis, the question that immediately comes to mind is whether the Privacy Commissioner of Canada and the Competition Bureau have launched investigations into the Sony rootkit incident. If not, why not?
good question for new MP
perhaps the new Canadian heritage Minister
needs to answer that – I would like to see a
response for ONCE that addressed the needs
of the Canadian public instead of only helping
their Big Music friends that paid their campaign
expenses.
Send message to Competition Bureau
I sent a copy of your public question to someone in the Competition Bureau. I hope that other people will consider doing the same thing, possibly convincing the bureau to at least publicly document why they feel they can’t act. This will give some useful feedback to the new Industry Minister who might respond with a legislative proposal to deal with any such shortcomings.
Even after downloading thier removal tool, there are still pieces of the sony xcp rootkit left on my computer’s registry. After phoning Sony, they said there was nothing they could do unless I had a Sony Computer. Also, the postal code they put on their UPS return label for my CD was wrong. Another possible way to inhibit the consumer from fair play?