Linked by Howard Fosdick on Fri 16th Nov 2012 07:43 UTC
A California man is suing Microsoft, alledging that his Surface tablet did not provide the advertised amount of disk space. The 32G device has 16G of space for users, as the operating system uses the other 16G. The 64G Surface leaves 45G free for users. The case will turn on whether Microsoft has clearly explained to customers how much free space the Surface leaves for their use outside of the OS. How much disk space does your OS consume?
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RE[10]: Comment by ilovebeer
by segedunum on Sun 18th Nov 2012 18:06
in reply to "RE[9]: Comment by ilovebeer"
Member since:2005-07-06
However, I cannot find any detailed judgments about the very topic at hand, ie. handling of advertised and used storage in an electronic device. Since there is no precedent set about this the outcome....
A class action lawsuit was presented against Western Digital some years ago that changed the way the industry advertised drive sizes. However, it is largely irrelevant. Advertising a set amount of storage space, consumers finding out they have nowhere near the amount of said storage space available to them and then finding out that there are caveats listed somewhere deep within a web site as to what they really mean is a pretty open and shut case. It's clear to me that the way this is advertised needs changing. Whatever a consumer is buying this is clearly unacceptable.
What the idiots on this thread are wanting is a specific law that says 'Users must get x bytes of free space' in order to dig themselves out of this hole without the faintest idea how this works legally. It's something I'm not going to do. I've argued why computer products are not a special case ("Oh, everyone does this!" is not a valid argument) and that's exactly what is going to happen in this case in the article.
RE[11]: Comment by ilovebeer
by lucas_maximus on Sun 18th Nov 2012 18:30
in reply to "RE[10]: Comment by ilovebeer"
Member since:2009-08-18
RE[11]: Comment by ilovebeer
by ilovebeer on Mon 19th Nov 2012 00:52
in reply to "RE[10]: Comment by ilovebeer"
Member since:2011-08-08
What the idiots on this thread are wanting is a specific law that says 'Users must get x bytes of free space' in order to dig themselves out of this hole without the faintest idea how this works legally. It's something I'm not going to do. I've argued why computer products are not a special case ("Oh, everyone does this!" is not a valid argument) and that's exactly what is going to happen in this case in the article.
You're the one who said several laws & cases are on the books in several countries that tackle this "issue", yet fail to provide even a single one as proof. You're got yourself backed into a corner, called on your BS, and ever since have been lashing out like a wounded animal in a last ditch effort to escape the burden of proof of your own fantasy claims.
You've already humiliated yourself, why you keep doing it is beyond me. I guess you think if you bark loud enough, nobody will notice you don't have any bite.
Features
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Hm, you're both kind of right and wrong. There are indeed various laws and regulations governing advertising, including falsified data, misleading claims and hiding of information, and there are plenty of judgments on these things. There was this case about Apple advertising iPad as 4G-capable in Australia, for example, whereas in reality the 4G-functionality worked only if you traveled to the US; since the 4G-feature didn't work in Australia this was a rather clear case of misleading customers and Apple got slapped for it. That is to say that you need to take the context into account.
However, I cannot find any detailed judgments about the very topic at hand, ie. handling of advertised and used storage in an electronic device. Since there is no precedent set about this the outcome of this lawsuit is still anyone's guess -- it's not even certain this will go to court at all. The judge will likely look at this with the intentional misleading of end-users in mind, and it's entirely up to the judge to decide whether this case fulfills the requirements for such or not.