Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) announced that it will no longer impose forced Windows updates your way.
The company’s updates have been annoying users for years,
resulting in a lawsuit filed by the Consumer Center in Baden-Württemberg in Germany. The suit came following complaints from users that Windows 10 was downloading and installing itself on their PCs without their consent back in 2015.
These users were using Windows 7 and Windows 8. Microsoft was hit with a cease-and-desist order 18 months later, and the company responded by saying it will “not download install files for new operating systems to a user system’s hard disk without a user’s consent.”
The suit filed by the Consumer Center claimed that the company was downloading up to 6GB of files on users’ PC without them agreeing to it, taking a considerable chunk of space that was deemed undesirable by many.
“We would have wished for an earlier backing-down, but [Microsoft’s agreement] is a success for consumer rights in the digital world,” Cornelia Tausch of the agency said.
There has yet to be clarification regarding how widespread the company’s move is, meaning if the cease-and-desist order only applies to German consumers or all Microsoft users.
One user lost important data due to Microsoft’s update, resulting in a lawsuit that the company settled for a sum of $10,000.
MSFT stock fell a fraction of a percentage Thursday.
