mennucc1's Journal: Italian judge rules HP must refund preinstalled Windows

Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera is reporting that an Italian judge has ruled in a recent case, where a buyer of a Compaq notebook asked HP to refund for the unwanted preinstalled Microsoft software. The judge ruled against HP, that was trying to use Microsoft's EULA as a basis for their refusal: the (italian) EULA indeed clearly states that

if the end user is not willing to abide by this EULA [...] he shall immediately contact the producer to get info for giving back the product and obtaining refunds.

HP defended , claiming the terms of their contract with Microsoft; the judge ruled that the end user request may not be dismissed based on a contract between HP and Microsoft, since this latter is unknown to the end user. The end user, a member of ADUC (a consumer organization) was given 90euro for Windows and 50euro for Works; this is just a small symbolical amount, but it is a huge signal to HP and all other major vendor; in defending, HP claimed that the license and contract to Microsoft is unilaterally written by Microsoft; the judge ruled that nonetheless, HP is to be held accountable by the EULA; the ruling seem to suggest that it may be time for vendors to address this situation.
Note that the Italian version of the EULA differs from the U.S.A. version, that states

IF YOU DO NOT AGREE, DO NOT INSTALL, COPY, OR USE THE SOFTWARE; YOU MAY RETURN IT TO YOUR PLACE OF PURCHASE FOR A FULL REFUND, IF APPLICABLE.

and does not specify who the enduser should ask the refund to.