Angry Microsoft customers have created a petition that calls for the Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF) to investigate the tactics the company has employed to persuade people to upgrade to Windows 10.

Petition organizer Todd Kleinpaste said Microsoft’s tactics are in fact more deceptive than persuasive, with the company employing all manner of devious tricks to try and get people to upgrade, as reported numerous times by SiliconANGLE.

Things have come to a head in recent weeks, what with Microsoft altering its Windows 10 installer in such a way that when users click on the small “X” in the top right corner of the window, this authorizes the download – contrary to decades of practice wherein clicking on that “X” has always been a way of ignoring or saying no to something. This, and other tactics, have caused numerous people to accidentally upgrade to Windows 10 even though they never wanted too, the petition’s creators say. What’s worse is that once Windows 10 begins dowloading, there’s no way to stop it, which means installing the new version and then rolling back to the previous one can lead to several wasted hours.

The practice is dangerous too. As the petition notes, in a widely publicized case last week, a ranger with the Chinko Project’s anti-poaching team in the Central African Republic related how Windows 10 began installing itself on their systems even though no one authorized it. According to the ranger’s post on Reddit, his team was on a mission to track and coordinate anti-poaching rangers in the field, and in the middle of those efforts their computers were effectively shut down when Microsoft forced a 6 GB download of Windows 10 through the company’s slow satellite internet connection.

The petition’s creators argue that Microsoft does not have any right to force download updates onto computers, and make them confusing to uninstall, but that’s exactly what it does with Windows 10, they argue.

“Despite outcries in forums, articles, and every other venue, Microsoft has not issued an apology, a retraction, or mentioned in any way that they are going to cease these practices,” Kleinpaste said. “The only mention of them ceasing any of it is that the upgrade to Windows 10 will no longer be free after this coming July.”

For its part, Microsoft insists its always been “transparent” on the matter of Windows 10 upgrades. It adds that metered connections can be set to avoid the download, but many believe Microsoft has not provided nearly as much clarity as the issue warrants.

The petition further makes a number of accusations about Microsoft’s tracking practices in Windows.

At the time of writing, the petition has so far attracted 3,098 signatures, which means it needs just 1,902 more before the EFF will consider it. The petition doesn’t ask for anything more than for the EFF to carry out a formal investigation into Microsoft for unethical business practices, and in all likelihood Microsoft would just ignore it anyway.

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