That whooshing noise
Is the point passing just over the heads of the WGA team bloggers at Microsoft.
In a post last month they talk about the fuss surrounding WGA getting caught sending information back to Microsoft whether or not the user agreed to this (by accepting the EULA) or not.
In their reply on the WGA blog Microsoft publish information on the information sent back to base, which is nice but also raises more concerns because it shows that some of the information sent back is encrypted. I personally think this is to protect the information from interception during transmission, but some people feel suspicious about the encrypted data and feel that part of the reason could be to hide what is being sent back to Microsoft.
Frankly I don't blame them for being suspicious. Microsoft have been caught with a hand in this cookie jar before. And the point that the WGA team seem to miss is that trust is a coin and at the moment Microsoft just don't have much trust left in the account with many people.
No matter how they dress it up, no matter how 'honest' their intentions might be, Microsoft have left a bad taste in the mouths of many customers with the whole WGA concept. When people already doubt your motives you should stop acting in a suspicious manner and you absolutely have no defence if you are not completely honest and open and upfront about what you do from this point. A "trustworthy Microsoft" would be like a reformed drug addict to many people. You don't just have to swear you're clean, you don't just have to be clean, you have to be seen to be clean.