I can't find it anywhere, but I remember reading about a software company that wrote an office suite for early computers (like DOS or possibly even pre-DOS), that would detect if it was a legal copy, and if it wasn't a legal copy, would delete your data. I seem to recall that they got slammed by the legal system pretty hard, which is one possible reason for why software companies don't do it nowadays. I personally see this as an action on par with, or worse then, the software company I mentioned's actions.