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In another series of gaffes, Sony Music admitted today that its second round of uninstall software to remove spyware from unsuspecting consumers’ computers exposed those computers to hacker attacks.

The company claims that less than 300 people have downloaded the second program after many more had downloaded the first which exposed their computers. The latest round of errors was found by Princeton University computer science professor Edward Felten and researcher Alex Halderman. According to ZDNet.com, Professor Felten has agreed to review any subsequent releases by Sony.

Consumer Help Web reported the initial round of problems to consumers on November 3, the day after blogger Mark Russinovich disclosed the problems in Sony’s music CD copy protection to the world.

Less than three weeks ago we wrote, “SonyBMG has placed an onerous burden on consumers that should be immediately lifted”. Sony has not only failed to lift that burden but has endangered the computer safety of the most proactive consumers who followed the company’s directions.

Posted under Privacy

After an explosive blog entry at Mark Russinovich’s highly technical blog Sony Music announced yesterday that it would release a patch to reveal copy protection code it secretly installed on consumer’s PCs.

Some Windows experts quickly claimed the files were security breaches while consumer and privacy advocates geared up for a battle. Just as quickly as the furor was created, however, the company backed down and issued a patch that would uninstall the software.

Consumers can visit SonyBMG at http://cp.sonybmg.com/xcp/english/faq.html. After wading through a series of carefully worded talking points, consumers will be able to uninstall the software from their computer — with the provision that the CD will no longer be playable on their computer. The company also requires a questionnaire be filled out before advancing to the download page.

Consumer Help Web believes in protecting intellectual property rights, but also believes that SonyBMG has placed an onerous burden on consumers that should be immediately lifted. The option to use the computer as a playback device without the installation of hidden tracking software should be a given, not a privilege.

Posted under Customer Service, Privacy