It’s been widely reported that Windows Media Player has some important bugs that need to be addressed urgently. Fair enough. There’s already an exasperated acknowledgement that MS software is bug-ridden and needs regular updates.

But this time it’s different.

If you install the latest patches, you’ll be faced with a new, Orwellian EULA.

“This means MS will have administrator privileges on your personal computer. What they feed you may be infected with viruses; it may break your applications, corrupt data files, destroy weeks or months or even years of work, but you’ll have no recourse if it does. By downloading this WMP critical security patch, which you must do to operate WMP safely, you’ll agree to give Billg deed and title to your personal property and to leave Microsoft immune from legal retaliation if they damage your machine.

The pusillanimity of wrapping what amounts to a digital land- grant into a needed, critical security patch is matched only by the arrogance of assuming that Windows is now such a fundamental linchpin of a human life worth living that no retaliation in the courts or at the retail counters is conceivable. (And that’s not to mention ‘informal’ retaliation by outraged IP warriors, which we fully expect to see.)”

Check out The Register: MS security patch EULA gives Billg admin privileges on your box