Belkin disables router spamming feature

[Moogie]

It seems that Belkin has had second thoughts and in reponse to all of the negative feed back they have been getting from their customers (like they didn't see that coming), have decided to give users the option of disabling the feature.<br><br>Belkin will be offering a firmware upgrade that will be available to download from its <a href="http://www.belkind.com">website</a> November 17, 2003.<br><br>I'm still struggling with the fact that they did this in the first place.<br><br>Here's the link to the <a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/33918.html">story.</a><br><br><br><br>

[Chinasaur]

Moogie et al,

Get over it :)

This is NOTHING compared to the sleazes who field Ad-ware/spy-ware, what M$ has done as a Monopoly to the computing public and what thousands of programs do on a regular basis...to wit...try to drum up business.

1. I bet nobody at Free-DC even OWNS a piece of Belkin networking hardware

2. This is a rather naive, not to mention fumblingly amusing attempt, by Belkin which has (hopefully) cost somebody his/her job, unless they did it as they left/were kicked out. I hope the latter is true :D

3. It's too bad people don't get this outraged over the damage done to the US Constitution and the Clean Water Act by the Bush Junta.

YMMV



:cheers:


and no, I'm not mad...just bitter :D LOL

[ECL]

AHA! I actually own a couple of Belkin network patch cables, so you're wrong there, Chinasaur. But that's the only piece of their networking gear I own - my router is a trusty ancient Netgear.

Actually, I'm happy with my several Belkin KVM switches and Belkin's my only acceptable vendor for those hugely expensive high-integrity VGA cables, so with everybody's permission I'll skip the boycott movement.

But seriously, it was inevitable that somebody in the residential router biz would do something like this, the only questions were who and when. There are probably teams at Netgear, Linksys and SMC frantically removing similar features from their upcoming products.

Belkin screwed up. They got called on it. They've changed their practices. We all move on.

[Moogie]

Originally posted by Chinasaur
Moogie et al,

Get over it :)

This is NOTHING compared to the sleazes who field Ad-ware/spy-ware, what M$ has done as a Monopoly to the computing public and what thousands of programs do on a regular basis...to wit...try to drum up business.

1. I bet nobody at Free-DC even OWNS a piece of Belkin networking hardware

2. This is a rather naive, not to mention fumblingly amusing attempt, by Belkin which has (hopefully) cost somebody his/her job, unless they did it as they left/were kicked out. I hope the latter is true :D



But....this is consumer-level stuff, marketed to the naive folks who just want something to work for their one or two home PCs. What Belkin did was abuse their trust, and what's worse, it's all quite legal. That it DID backfire on them should be a salutary lesson. And....it should wind up costing them a bundle in lost sales. We have a LinkSys router w/4-port switch. If they had tried that on us, someone at LinkSys would require a rectalotomy to dig that sucker out. :D





3. It's too bad people don't get this outraged over the damage done to the US Constitution and the Clean Water Act by the Bush Junta.



The damage to the Constitution done by the so-called "Patriot Act" was supported by all but 1 member of the Senate, and (I think) 4 members of the House. And I do agree, the Patriot Act is a POS. It's only saving grace is that it has a "sunset provision", which means it lapses in 5 years. The damage to the Clean Water Act is debateable. Bush's appointees to the EPA are proceeding fairly carefully - they really are aware that the public is watching them quite closely. And they are aware that their toes will be held to the fire if they move too far. :)