Actually what he bought was a laptop with a refundable copy of windows. If - after the sale - the vendor is claiming that what he bought is something different, i.e. a laptop with a non-refundable copy of windows, then it is the vendor that is in the wrong.
It's not about forcing or not forcing people to buy something they don't want, but requiring vendors to be honest on what they sell, and if they sell an item which has conditions, they are not allowed to unilaterally change those conditions to the detriment of the buyer after the event, especially if the buyer relied on those conditions before making the purchase.

Or how about having a large number of people walk around with phones on, with their path describing the word "N O" or similar?

It may be a licence agreement, but as it the licence is for distribution, not use, it would be a LA, not a EULA.

From my understanding of the OP, you wouldn't have to expect to be paid at all for this work, just to reduce the "value" of the asset containing the personal information, and/or link the obligations of the usage of the date to the ownership thereof.
Currently the personal information is just seen as an asset worth X, with the liabilities of the same asset (the obligations of how it's used) seen as completely separate (and not taken over). If you could get them linked officially, then the people buying the personal information would be required to buy both the data and the obligations.
For a very rough comparison, if you bought a property lease from a company, I wouldn't expect to be to choose to just take over the "right to occupy for the next X years" and not accept the "obligation to pay rent for the next X years" as they are inextricably linked. If the same could be done with the personal information, then the privacy obligation would have to transfer across, as it woudl turn from selling just "a database with personal information" to "a database with personal information with the following liabilities/obligations"

Surely it should be the responsibility of the publisher, as they would be the ones that know what doesn't work a second time? So long as the seller marks it as "used", what else reasonably could they do?

Unfortunately you missed out the [vital] first part of the faq which is:

So, you are only required to make the source code available if your original distribution was in the form of binary+source offer. (3b of GPL) If you made the source available with the binary (as per 3a) you would not have to include that offer, and the offer would not be there to pass on to any third party.

Actually, it is not wrong. If Oracle chose to distribute the source at the same time as the binaries to those they sell to, then they would _not_ be required by the GPL to supply the source to any third party, and they would still be adhering to the GPL.

This is because there are three options in section 3 for source code access. 3a is to distribute source with the same time as the binary. 3b is to distribute the binary with an offer (valid to any third party) and 3c is to distribute the binary including the original offer (if you yourself received this as per 3b, and are distributing non-commercially.)

Thus, if the software was distributed as per 3a (binary+source) to someone who purchased it, then third parties would have no right to request the source per 3b from oracle, and the infringement would by the purchaser for not including the source as per 3a (as they cannot pass on an offer as per 3c, as they didn't get it by 3b themselves)

At a guess:
a) Precedent. They don't want anyone getting the idea that suing them for the "right" amount (i.e. low enough) will result in a payoff
b) Cost. is probably not a large factor, as they're ibm lawyers anyway, I believe, and even if costs are incurred, I'm sure they're prefer to pay this money to their legal team than to the shareholders of the company on the other side of the litigation.
c) Logistics/legality, I'm not sure if it would be as straightforward as you suggest, as unless you have 100% of the shares, there are laws that protect minority shareholders, so it might be difficult to drop the case from the sco side without opening a can of worms from any remaining shareholders. (and there would doubtless be a few that refuse to sell if the above happened, hoping (somewhat logically) that if they were prepared to buy out the whole company to avoid litigation costs, that they would do the same for the last few shares for the same reason.

It was also reported by the bbc http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/8293784.stm

How exactly would this be in breach of the DPA?

Since they have proven that they can remove the copy from the user's device (by doing so) if they said they could not, that would not be the "correct answer", it would be a lie. And, if the failure to remove the infringing data was a "will not", not a "can not", it would seem to be trivial to prove that any further infringement (by keeping it on the device) was wilful. (if they could remove it but _chose_ not to)

The policies are fine, the problem is that it is the _manufacturers_ are not sticking to it. The Eula for XP clearly states that it's refundable, so unless the manufacturers are able to change the licensing on a MS product, what they are (and must) be selling is the hardware with a refundable copy of XP installed.

Did anyone really expect that the back end database would be checked for all use, no matter how trivial? No, of course not, so saying this is simply a statement of fact, and, if anything, an attempt to convince people that they are backing down, when it is nothing of the sort.

The most worrying aspect of the id system is the creation of the biometric database, not the card itself. The card itself may be the most visible, but it's almost a red herring, so you will see more ploys like this to show the government "giving in" on the card aspect, without any budge on the crucial part of the database itself, which is scariest part.

In short, this "watering down" claim is a decoy, and means less than nothing.