Man wins damages from Acer over pre-installed XP and software
By Ruben Francia
A French national has won a lawsuit against Acer over a laptop he purchased that came pre-loaded with Windows XP and other software he didn’t want installed.
Antoine Gutzwiller claimed that he had no choice but to buy the Acer notebook with a tag price of 599 euros, which included an unwanted installations of Microsoft Windows XP Home, Microsoft Works, PowerDVD, Norton Antivirus and NTI CD Maker.
The court ruled against the manufacturer, and ordered Acer to refund Gutzwiller 311.85 euros to cover the cost of pre-loaded software , which was 135.20 euros for Windows XP Home, 60 euros for Microsoft Works, 40.99 euros for PowerDVD, 38.66 euros for Norton Antivirus and 37 euros for NTI CD Maker.
The judge also ruled that Acer to had pay an additional 650 euros to cover what he described as “abusive resistance and committed expenses” and other legal cost.
Initially, Acer had offered Gutzwiller only a 30 euros refund on Microsoft products bundled with the notebook, but Gutzwiller rejected the offer and took the company to court, instead.
The ruling has been welcomed by those who support the sale of PCs and notebooks without preinstalled software as it could set a further precedent for future European cases involving pre-loaded software.
Every customer should be entitled to a full refund for software forced upon them by computer manufacturers who seem to ignore the concept of giving customers what they want. In this case, Acer should have made a fair offer in the first place. The company only has itself to blame for the bad press it has subsquently received.
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I did not realize that Acer was forcing this poor man to buy their PC!
If I want an eco-friendly auto, I don’t buy an F150 then sue Ford because it runs on petrol.
All this accomplished was to raise the cost of all PCs to include the cost of such frivillous lawsuits.
If everone who wants a PC without an OS just bought a model that meets their needs then Acer and others would lose sales and be forced to adjust their line to meet the demand.
“Supply and demand” works better than “sue and raise prices”.