In 2005, Sony illegally installed rootkits on 22 million computers to prevent the users from ripping copyrighted music, and could not be uninstalled. It also reported user’s listening habits back to Sony. Ironically, the code itself contained open source software, and so infringed copyright
Sony BMG initially denied that the rootkits were harmful. It then released, for one of the programs, an “uninstaller” that only un-hid the program, installed additional software which could not be easily removed, collected an email address from the user, and introduced further security vulnerabilities.