Could they do it? Deactivate Windows licenses, block Cloud services, access to Office 365 and whatnot?
Don’t threaten me with a good time!
Yes but not legally. They are also legally bound to EU laws, which would protect the clients that bpught the software. But! Just like plenty of companies pulled out of Russia, if the US does not care and decides ro enable this behavior then they could do it without too much trouble.
But I doubt this would happen, the EU is a big part of their income, and money is what they care about.
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Haven’t used a Microsoft product at home in years, at work though is a very different story. Everything is Microsoft and its horrible and frustrating.
Its has already turned off all mainline windows but the worst one so.
It hasn’t, though. They just ended support for older versions of Windows. You can still use those versions. The question being asked is if they can actually stop you from using Windows, to which the answer is most likely no.
- They can deactivate cloud services likely on a press of a button, for all EU IP addresses.
- If there’s a killswitch in Windows, yes. Otherwise they can still selectively put out an update that would lock up your PC and disable it from functioning, possibly even wiping any and all drives in the PC completely clean.
The likelihood of this scenario is small outside of either the USA invading Europe, or Trump giving the EU to Russia or other powers, while Trump promising MS no taxes and regulations for a given period.
Is that a promise?
I mean, technically yes, but also no, because Microsoft is a private company, so it would be up to Bill Gates, and Bill Gates wouldn’t do that.
Wat.
Bill Gates will come and say “no!” and microsoft will make a sad face and say “okay.” and then bill gates will call my uncle at steam and ban microsoft from playing rocket league.
Bill Gates would never lose out on $$ by banning access to use windows from Europe.
It would be the biggest self-own in history but apparently the yanks are into that these days.
That, yes, and maybe Microsoft wouldn’t be the one pulling the trigger? I mean, with prism the NSA had access to most internet traffic between the US and the rest of the world, I think. Who knows what mechanisms there are in place, and what this government might decide to do?
Yes, IIRC they already did this for Russia.
Can we ask them to turn off all the Xbox services and Activision-Blizzard games in russia as well? Overwatch should be illegal in there anyway because of the “gay propaganda”
Id like russians to start getting banned for the same shit english speaking people do. In english the word “ho” is censored and met with a warning, meanwhile russians can string together 20 slurs and an legitimate, non joke call for genocide and nothing happens. And if you point that out you get called a racist.
That would clear them out very quickly indeed. Most russians I’ve encountered on the internet are either quite ashamed of what their government is doing and try to blend in with the English speaking crowd, or are so loud and obnoxious you can’t possibly miss them.
Overwatch should be illegal in there anyway because of the “gay propaganda”
Good luck with that one. As long as Overwatch is free to play, they can just make new accounts with an EU VPN. No way to tie the account owner to their country of origin unless they fork over that info voluntarily, such as by having to make an online purchase.
I think they have to register a valid phone number to play ranked, unless that restriction got removed
Microsoft has the ability to do this if they really wanted to. It would completely destroy their business if they did, though, so they won’t. I mean, who would keep using Microsoft products if the company was willing to just take it away from you at a moment’s notice?
The US government cannot do it so easily. They’d have to order Microsoft to do so. Microsoft would resist and take it to court. The US Court system makes a LOT of really fucked up rulings, but the one thing they do reliably is side with big business. I’m inclined to think that in this hypothetical showdown, the courts would side with Microsoft.
Maybe if we ask nicely.
Microsoft is an Eldritch hydra monstrosity. I think it has become its own civilization. I think it’s so large that it just exists as a self sustaining chaos phenomena. I don’t think the organization can make a decision. One department of thousands makes a decision. And they all jostle about breaking each other’s shit every other day.
Of course they could. One update could render the system worthless or come with malware that infests systems in the network.
Oh, so just another Patch Tuesday then.
Yep. The idea that microsoft can “do nothing” to a system that isn’t hosted on their servers is pure delusion - or ignorant. They haven’t thought more deeply about being evil, which is quite cute actually.
Yes, technically they could cause massive disruptions. Not likely they will.
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They would not get paid.
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Europe would suddenly have a very good reason to spend billions of euro on funding competitors.
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