If Mr. Softee The Cash Cow decides to use spyware, you can bet there will be trial lawyers lined up around the block to sue the company six ways to Sunday. It will make the Vioxx/Bextra drug class action bonanza or the tobacco litigation look like peanuts in comparison.
What is going to happen is Mr. Softee is going to fully disclose the piracy monitoring in its OS licensing agreements...and the user has to accept as a condition of using the software. As long as there is full disclosure, the company will get away with it. If your typical Democrat can't understand the lingo, expect class action lawsuits to a lesser extent.
Of course, there is the perennial antitrust concerns. To what extent will the DOJ and the EU allow Mr. Softee to impose conditions and restrictions given its share of the marketplace.
This thread shows alot of pre 911 mentality in our attitudes toward MSFT.
I'm waiting for more of these commercial licenses to get thrown out in court. It happened to Network Associates, which in its license prohibited even product reviews without permission.