Someone used my credit card on-line illegally. What recourse do I have?

It's very possible that the merchant didn't require a valid email address. It's obviously not good business practice, but in general a valid email address is typically not part of how a merchant makes sure that a buyer is legitimate. The email address is typically used only to send informational messages like sales receipts and the like. Messages that your thief won't care about at all.

So if the thief used a bogus email address there's simply nothing to trace. Whatever email address they used, even if accidentally someone else's legitimate email, actually has nothing to do with who or where the thief is.

Now, some merchants don't offer the download link directly on purchase, but email it to you instead. In a case like this, then yes, the thief would have needed to establish an email account on which he or she could have received the link to download the software they were stealing. If they're a very stupid thief, they could have used their own email address. More likely, though, they probably just created a one-time use email account with one of the free email providers. Could they be traced? Possibly, but:

• I believe it would require legal action to force that email provider to reveal any information about that account that could help - like the IP address from which it was created

• I believe it would require further legal action to force the ISP who owns that IP address to reveal any information that might help - like th physical location of the computer at the time the email address was created

Now, even if both entities were highly cooperative (which is highly unlikely), they may not have the data. That type of logging is enormous, and I'd expect the providers to flush those records regularly.

So while if you're very very lucky it might be possible to trace an email address associated with your purchase, the bottom line is that it's simply too impractical

The harsh practical reality is that an email address cannot easily be traced.

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Now, what about that license revocation?

In most cases the answer is no. Almost all downloadable software, once activated, remains activated until it's reinstalled for some reason.

What you've described has been referred to as a "kill switch" - something a vendor can do to render illegal software inoperable. It's actually been in the news lately, since at least one major software manufacturer has apparently built that feature into it's new flagship product.

Apparently Microsoft Windows Vista has a kill switch.

If a Vista install is illegal, Microsoft may be able to cripple it. The facts aren't all in yet, and Microsoft certainly hasn't said that they will do it, but there's a lot of concern that they could.

And, of course, the reason there's concern is the fear that they could get it wrong; the fear that legitimate users could get turned off by mistake.

So if you think a kill switch is a good idea, you may want to reconsider. It could easily fall into the category of "be careful what you wish for".

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The real issue to be concerned about is simply this: how did the thief get your information in the first place? Has that issue been corrected, and if not, what's to prevent it, or worse, from happening again? Identity theft is on the rise, and in all honesty, you got off easy.