Question about illegal windows keys

[Azwraith]

The keys selling online $20-30 are mostly illegal, right?

So, why doesn't Microsoft take any action to stop these sellers?

I don't think that it may give any pros from it like letting people cracking windows to be the worldwide used os.

Or is there a reason Microsoft can't stop them?

[stefanDB]

I think microsoft benefits when there are a lot of people using windows, because then everyone basically has to use windows and they can sell more of their product. 

[Origami Cactus]

They take action, the keys get disabled every once in a while.

The problem is that some keys are somewhat legitimate, for example a school gives out licences for students, but a student resells his licence.

That is harder to detect.

[RobinD]

Microsoft has some very aggressive marketing techniques. They buy out competition or drag them through trumped up court cases till they go bankrupt.  

So it not oversight. Its a very carefully coincided marketing ploy. 

 

If everyone is using windows even people who couldn't normally afford it then there is no room for a competitor to come in and create an alternative. Therefore Pirated/resell copies of Windows encourage more real sells as there is no competition. I'm sure this is just one of many reasons why Microsoft deliberately allow pirating/resells.

[manikyath]

53 minutes ago, RobinD said:

Microsoft has some very aggressive marketing techniques. They buy out competition or drag them through trumped up court cases till they go bankrupt.  

So it not oversight. Its a very carefully coincided marketing ploy. 

 

If everyone is using windows even people who couldn't normally afford it then there is no room for a competitor to come in and create an alternative. Therefore Pirated/resell copies of Windows encourage more real sells as there is no competition. I'm sure this is just one of many reasons why Microsoft deliberately allow pirating/resells.

this, while having some nuggets of truth.. seems a fairly wild guess.. and buying out competition is quite a different topic than what is debated on here.

 

i'd more specificly think its to do with a limited amount of control over what goes on out there on the interwebz. for as powerful of a company as microsoft is, if you cant find someone's front door it's often hard to drag them to court.

 

the truth is in the details i guess, its not like they're dying to get that license key money, and in the grand scheme of things the "grey market" keys are a fairly small marketshare (deals with manufacturers, GVLK, server licenses, etc.) and require a fairly high investment to fight against. it may just simply not make economical sense to fight it. that doesnt mean that MS approves of grey market keys, or that it is somehow "the right thing to do".

 

in a sense, its like jaywalking in a quiet street. technically it's not allowed, but no one gives a damn if you do it.

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

4 minutes ago, manikyath said:

its not like they're dying to get that license key money

Yup, they make plenty of money data-mining you nowadays.  The purchase price of your copy of Windows is just a bonus for them. 

 

If they were to really clamp down on people cracking the OS or using grey market keys, quite a few of those people would be forced to move to Linux and then MS would lose the data-mining revenue of those people as well.  So it's better for MS' bottom line to leave the grey market be.

[manikyath]

Just now, Captain Chaos said:

Yup, they make plenty of money data-mining you nowadays.  The purchase price of your copy of Windows is just a bonus for them. 

was more so on about the endless stream of money from Azure, O365 products, and licenses for professional use.

 

i'd dare to guess that data-mining's straight forward income is still fairly low compared to that income, the data-mining more so being a measure to save on "active market research" and improve the results people get out of searching on their platform. making it more of a platform upgrading tool than a direct money maker.

[LogicalDrm]

Grey market keys and cracking Windows are two different things. Cracking could be undo with proper patching, but knowing Microsofts skills on that department, there won't be any real risk anytime soon. Grey market keys are black listed when someone makes complaint or otherwise reveals pack to have violated ToS. As MS gets money when volume packs are bought, they aren't that much on fences about this.

[Donut417]

On 9/9/2018 at 8:56 AM, Azwraith said:

So, why doesn't Microsoft take any action to stop these sellers?

Simple. Windows 10 is full of spyware. Microsoft harvests user data in the hopes of generating advertising revenue, among other things. The more people with Windows 10, the more data they can collect. Thats why they gave Windows 10 away for free. That it why they let these re sellers continue to exist. Also, remember Windows 10 will run unactivated for like ever, so maybe they dont see a point and bringing legal action as lawyers and courts costs money.