This is Big Brother tactics launching the thin end of the wedge. To pay thousands of dollars for a camera then be told "oh you have to have an account against your will to use the software to get the most out of your camera" flies in the face of consumer rights. Indeed I am fairly sure this would be in breach of current Australian Consumer Laws where some companies have already been prosecuted for only offering full length warranties to customer who "registered" (a.k.a. surrended heaps of personal details about themselves to go onto a database they have no control of) and customers who refused to register their purchase within some time frame after buying it only got a shortened warranty. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) ruled that is restriction of consumer rights. They have also prosecuted several big retailers for misleadingly offering cost-extra extended warranties past the basic, e.g. a fridge may come with a manufacturers warranty of 1 year and the retailer offers an additional 4 years for a fee, but in Australia the ACCC ruled nobody buys a fridge expecting it to fail after 12 months so if it dies 2 or 3 years after purchase, you are still entitled to full warranty repairs or replacement, and manufacturers warranty statements cannot contravene the basic consumer rights, in the same way as if a store has a sign at the entry saying it is a condition of entry that all bags be presented for searching at the exit, that cannot override common law which says only Police and Customs have the right to search a person. I would personally lodge a formal complaint to ACCC if Canon tries this stunt in Australia as others will also no doubt do. Hopefully the EU will jump all over this. It's a massive insult to democracy to be told you have to create an account (which I bet requires at least an e-mail address to spam you) just to use the product you have bought. I know in some countries you can only play DVD's or blu-rays that match the local region code but down under any machine must have the ability to override region codes and play DVD's and blu-rays sourced from any region in the world. The fact some players bury that unlock function deep in hidden menus indicates they build the products for the world markets and only unlock what they have to to comply with local laws. Canon are really pushing their luck with this one. Personally I don't give a fat rat's clacker about DPP as it is slow and clunky at the best of times even on my i9 with 64GB DDR-5 RAM, but if the EOS Utility requires a login for me to download images from my camera, game on moll.
