I'm not a big fan of DRM period, but it really seems like Ubisoft brought the stupid to their implementation:

More than three weeks after the release of The Settlers 7, with the controversial 'always on-line' DRM, a lot of people still can't connect to Ubisoft's DRM servers. The forum threads where people can post if they are unable to connect keep growing daily. One reason for the lack of fixes or responses from support seems to be that the people responsible were on vacation during the Easter holiday, despite the promise of 24/7 monitoring of the servers

If your plan is to require a "phone home" by the software, then you have to make sure that someone is there to, you know, answer the phone :)

Technorati Tags: stupidity