The best of 'Reader comments': Electoral liberties, 'rip-off Britain' and farewell to the paperclip

The past seven days have seen outspoken reactions to a number of stories - with the Microsoft paperclip once again raising ire, and celebration of its imminent demise. Fears over data protection inspired heated debate, and one judge's words of condemnation for 'rip-off Britain' met with a chorus of approval.

News broke late last week that the UK government is considering 'privatising' the electoral register and selling the information to credit agencies (http://www.silicon.com/a43859 ).

Who do they think they are?
By Andrew Corbishley

Am I missing something here? Just because it's the government which holds this information does that give them authority to trample on my rights to determine who does and doesn't have access to my personal details for financial gain? NO. What next? Will the customs and excise be selling our passport photos to modelling agencies? The way things are going, I wouldn't be surprised.

Where will it all end?
By Lawrence Freeman

Where will it all end? As we all fill out the census forms this month, under threat of prosecution, will this be the next info outsourced and up for sale?

Who cares?
By Don Grunbaum

Electoral Registers have been available for years direct from the councils that maintain them. Where do you think people like 192.com get their information from?

It may not be news to the majority of us, but to hear a judge accuse mobile phone operators and computer games manufacturers of ripping off users (http://www.silicon.com/a43851 ) was refreshing and brought your comments pouring in.

Greed... it's a sin you know
By the prolific Desmond McDonnell

I think the judge is correct. The public are grossly overcharged for mobile phone use and video games.

The good old days...
By Ainsley Charles Ward

OK, so it was a long time ago, but do you know the best thing about the Commodore 64/Atari era? As a 10-year old I could go to local shops and buy a game for £1.99 - two weeks pocket money. I know things have changed, but looking at what my nephews get now, a console game is now two month's pocket money. How many kids are going to save up when they can get pirated games for a fiver?

Well done m'lud...
By Andrew Rawle

Thank God for some public loving Judges. Well done to the British judicial system. For once!

Finally, this week, for many, will be remembered as the week the Microsoft paperclip was condemned to meet its maker (http://www.silicon.com/a43842 ).

Not to put too fine a point on it...
By Russell Gose

The paper clip was one of the most obnoxious and obtrusive pieces of flotsam ever encountered.

We're not morons you know...
By Dominic Scott

Maybe finally Microsoft and other big corporations have got it into their heads that making users lives as easy as possible does not necessarily mean treating them as if they all have an IQ of 70. There's such a difference between improving a product's usability, and patronising your entire customer-base - which in Microsoft's case is most of the known world.

... or maybe we are
By Nick Koleszar

Are you all utter morons? Is the Office Assistant really so difficult to deal with?

Let's see... when Office Assistant pops up, there is an Options button. If we click on the Options button, we can uncheck the box that says, 'Use the Office Assistant'.

Or, if we're really, really helpless, we can type 'stop using office assistant' in the box provided by the Office Assistant and click on 'Search'. It doesn't take much further reading to find the instructions on how to stop using the Office Assistant.

Relax. It's only a paperclip&
By John Fyfe

Actual hatred against a little graphical thing! Y'all need to chill. Then MS won't market at you so hard.

The penny drops
By Nicholas Evans

A masterpiece of blackmail marketing by Microsoft - sell people something they never wanted, and then get them to pay for a new version without the annoying thing that they never asked for in the first place.

... it all makes sense now.