Thanks Vla Deloitte & Touche has released a product activation audit report dated 1st of October that looks at the Product Activation from an end-users point of view, then rates it.
The goal of Product Activation is to reduce a form of piracy known as "casual copying" or "softlifting." Casual copying is the sharing of software between people in a way that infringes on the software"s end user license agreement (EULA). An example of casual copying is if someone were to obtain a copy of Office XP and load it on his or her PC, then share it with a second person who loaded it on his or her PC, then share it with a third person who loaded it on his or her PC, and so on. This form of piracy is prevalent and has been estimated by some industry trade groups to account for a staggering 50 percent of the economic losses due to piracy. Worldwide, the piracy rate is estimated to be 37 percent; in other words, one out of every three software products in the market is pirated.