Microsoft has begun 63 individual lawsuits
against people involved in the sale of fake software on auction sites. The legal action is against sellers in 12
nations including the UK, US, Germany and France. The majority of people targeted by Microsoft have been selling counterfeit
“Blue Edition” versions of Windows XP.
Research carried out by Microsoft discovered that 34% of fake software
sold on auction websites did not install properly and 43% contained tampered code that could expose buyers to dangers
such as identity theft or other attacks.
Microsoft stopped installing XP on new machines at the end of June 2008 as
‘Vista‘, the newest version of Windows took it’s place.