>Craig,
>
>>>Dan,
>>>
>>>I have no problem whatsoever with Microsoft protecting their intellectual property. I am just a little uncomfortable with how they are doing it, although I suppose it could be worse. They could just send the data back without anyone knowing.
>>
>>
>>The could do other things that IMO are worse. Dongles, key disks, etc.
>
>
>Hmm. I suppose you're right on that point. I honestly do not know how I'd accomplish both effectively managing product theft and ease of use.

Well it seems to have been working pretty well so far, without any of this new registration stuff. You know, they might have been able to do a much more thorough job of things if:
1) They (MS) had actually used the old registration process/data for more than just marketing;
2) Had PC vendors, as part of their (illicit) agreement with them, supply pertinent information about the buyer(s).

As for sending stuff without anyone knowing...exactly. We've all heard about how that goes on today in non-MS web stuff. As the owners of the OS, they can do it easier than anyone.