Computerworld - Microsoft last week killed an anti-piracy service that checked whether customers were running legal copies of Office, saying that the program had "served its purpose."
ZDNet blogger Ed Bott first reported on Microsoft's move after a tipster pointed him toward a support document on the company's site.
That Dec. 17 document simply noted that Office Genuine Advantage (OGA) "has been retired," but offered no explanation.
In an e-mail reply to questions today, a Microsoft spokeswoman added, "The program has served its purpose and thus we have decided to retire the program."
OGA, which debuted alongside Office XP in 2007, was Microsoft's way to separate counterfeit from legitimate copies of its popular suite. In 2006, Microsoft restricted Office template downloads to users running a legal edition of the application bundle, then upped the ante early in 2007 by requiring all users to validate their copy of Office with OGA to use the now-defunct Office Update site and service.
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