Sorry, stratege, but you simply don´t seem to know what a rootkit really is. Read the Wiki again. Rootkit=Intentional malware. Gaining root privileges on a protected machine. It´s not enough to simply hide drivers and send anonymous usage data (the latter is also done by Windows Media Player, Winamp and Realplayer if you don´t disable that). Mark was simply wrong to call it a rootkit. It´s not semantics, there´s a huuuuge difference between a copy protection and a rootkit.
Read also this tgdaily article if you don´t believe me:
http://www.tgdaily.com/2005/11/03/so..._it_a_rootkit/