Slashdot Mirror
AOL Class-Action Suit Over Pop-Up Ads
unigeek writes: "CNN --
Florida judge approves class-action lawsuit against America Online
At issue: 'Pop-up' advertisements.
A Florida judge has approved a class-action, multimillion-dollar lawsuit against the world's largest Internet service provider, America Online, on behalf of hourly subscribers who viewed so-called "pop-up" advertisements." I for one of dreamt of this day. It'll never win 'cuz you can turn them off of course, but it's pretty dang funny.
What I would like to see, is a lawsuit against porn sites who grab the 100 most searched words and put them in their meta tags for search engines to find. I hate when I search for something that I need, and the first 20 pages are porn sites. If I was looking for "cum guzzling sluts," I think that I would have put that in as my search, now wouldn't I?
Eh...
But just because you hate them, doesn't give you the right to go sue. If it did, i'd have sued Yahoo! for the "follow the page" Java popup adverts, my ISP for having a broken router that keeps going down all the time, people who stop dead in the middle of the street, and Microsoft.
Honestly, i don't see how having to look at an anoying popup advert is any basis for a lawsuit.
Syllable : It's an Operating System
Not only did one of us get hitched,
But now AOl is getting sued!
I'm getting a little fuzzy headed.
-----
If my facts are wrong then tell me. I don't mind.
Florida judge approves class-action lawsuit against America Online [snip] It'll never win 'cuz you can turn them off of course, but it's pretty dang funny.
......
Ahh, but the attorney taking the case has also stated the following:
"That's a new thing," he said. "Our lawsuit period goes back to 1994. That wasn't the case for the five-year period we're covering."
So there's hope yet
Here's a link to a detailed Irish Times article
Pete C
Alison
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." - Albert Einstein
Does anyone else think that's ridiculous?
If you ask me, this whole thing sounds like a weak attempt by the people who are pissed at the unlimited rate plan. I read an article a few months ago in Wired about how the volunteers who patrol chatrooms and the such are suing AOL for back wages!! They claimed that since they don't get free hours anymore they should be paid. I guess they forgot what Volunteer means.
I hope that AOL's defense of "it is user-configurable" gets tossed - it would set a nice precedent of companies being responsible for the default configuration of their software (can we sue MS for all the virii propagated by poor Outlook configurations?).
Information wants to be free
Information wants to be free
So what? Guns want to kill, but we have laws against that.
Yes!
Now all we need is a rewritten and updated version of Dante's Inferno, and have it approved and endorsed by the pope!
Cower in FEAR, AOL, TELEMARKETERS, MICROSOFT!!!
The telemarketers will be FORCED to sit in a room answering phones all day and POLITELY LISTEN to mind-numbingly BORING advertisements!!!
Top AOL employees will have to DOWNLOAD programs to UPDATE their pitiful computers... only to have AOL CRASH on them, and give them BUSY signals!!
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Allowing pop-up ads is part of the AOL ToS. If people do not want pop-up ads, they should find a real ISP. I think I'm going to sue FreeWWWeb because of that annoying sound that the modem makes every time it connects :-)
ByteMyCode.com: A Web 2.0 code sharing community.
I know for a fact that disabling popup windows can be fixed in any browser simply by disabling Javascript. But is this really an answer. The reason a browser has Javascript is so that extra features can be provided other than simple HTML.
Maybe from a lawsuit like this, It may require browser makers to put in features to disable certain Javascript commands (ie for popup windows).
But still, it's the Web Site that has control over ads and not the ISP, so I don't see this lawsuit really going to go anywhere.
Honestly, i don't see how having to look at an anoying popup advert is any basis for a lawsuit
Well, if you are on AOL there is a good chance you are paying by the hour. That means that if it takes 3 extra seconds per popup add to load, and another 2 seconds to close it and get back to where you wanted to be, you've lost 5 seconds. So after 12 popup adds you've lost a minute. If you have to do that with say 24 popup adds a day you're losing 2 minutes a day, after a month you've lost an hour of time by being forced to close their popup ads. Also, the extra traffic reduces the overall performance of your connection. These may seem like really tiny petty things, and I think they are as well, but people ARE able to show damages, no matter how minute, by these popup ads, so they have a case.
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
Come on - don't complain that you're wasting online time when you're looking at ads that can be disabled. If you can't turn them off, you're dumb enough you need to pay... Think of it as a tax on stupidity.
kwsNI
This has nothing to do with generic web javascript window.new() popup ads on porn sites, warez sites, or what have you. This is an AOL feature, that AOL supplies, and AOL gets revenue from. I'm afraid that this won't stop porn sites from littering your desktop with windows, nor will it stop warez sites from doing the same. It will only change the behaviour of AOL to AOL subscribes. So don't get your panties in a bunch.
I've been tellign AOL users this stuff sucked for years! Just change darnit! (See: free-market-economy)
Tramont said the practice amounts to charging twice for the same product. "AOL gets money from advertisers, then money from subscribers, so they're making double on the same time," he said.
I hate to bust this wonderful anti-AOL bubble, but newspapers have been doing this for years. Same with Cable TV, if I have to watch commercials while watching that CNN i pay $50/month to watch, they are wasting my time. If you say pop-ups are worse because you have to actually do something proactive to make them go away, well it's the same as a whole page ad, where you have to turn the page.
I'm not saying this class action lawsuit will not result in victory for the class, but if it does, someone in Florida really ought to try suing a newspaper on this same precedent.
-Alison
I have nothing against banner ads. They used to pay my salary. As long as they're non-intrusive and relevant to the audience of the site, I think they're great.
But then you look at things like a recent levis campaign. Every time you went to the home page of a site you got to be the proud downloader of between 80 and 100k of flash video for a popup levis ad. And you'd be sitting reading something, and it pops up right over what you're reading. Now this is intrusive and is starting to interfere with my browsing experience.
What's even worse is the Compaq non-stop campaign. My natural reaction to a popup ad is to click the x in the corner and kill it. The idea behind the compaq ad, was Compaq are non-stoppable. So they made their ad KEEP coming back up about 4 or 5 times. This is just plain annoying and adds stress and extra mouse movement to my already ruined wrists and my already stressed life. I don't need this.
So I guess, yeah, lawsuits are dumb, but as what happened with the Prof vs Demon where they settled, maybe this will scare the hell out of advertisers and sites that use this kind of advertising, and we'll all have a more pleasant browse experience.
/* Wayne Pascoe
Oh please, take some responsibility for yourself. If you run around running everything you receive in e-mail you're gonna get burnt.
You could find a problem of one degree in almost all software's default configs. Not just AOL or MS.
But the lameness of the suit just begs to be flamed. Why are AOL customers expressing their software behaviour preferences through a lawsuit? 2000 years of civilization, and the only way a collective groups of AOL (l)users can figure out how to ask for the ads to be placed at the END of the session is through a lawsuit. Why could they not have learnt to talk to AOL in a civilized manner? Software is a flexible thing. It is plastic, programmable, not set in stone, and their relationship to AOL is valuable enough that some kind of bargaining can be set up. Why make lawyers rich?
First off, this lawsuit goes back to 1994, long before popup ads could be turned off.
Secondly, the ability to turn the ads off isn't particularly simple to find(remember, this is a service that built its success on knowing exactly how to make things simple to find; anything that wasn't simple within AOL was made intentionally not simple.
Finally, and this is important, the ads would come back on their own. In security, we make things a pain in the ass when we want to convince the users to use a more secure alternative(i.e. ssh-agent and RSA keys vs. passwords at every prompt). For AOL, it's "Watch the ads, and you won't have to keep turning them off."
They'll settle out of court; they really don't want their advertising dirty laundry getting aired. Remember, this is the company that got UCITA in their state before anyone else.
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
It's the same idea -- I pay for programming, but I can't see the content I'm paying for until the ads are over or until a push a button (to close the ad, or in the case of TV, change the channel). Would you get away with suing a cable company on these grounds? I doubt it. AOL has smart enough lawyers to bring up this fact, and then make themselves look like good guys by showing how you can turn off the ads altogether, something you can't do with cable. Just my 2 cents.
--
how would I get even with these idiots, to punish them for this stupid groundless lawsuit?
Give them lifetime subscriptions to my own service.
--Jeff
correct, search for "Junkbuster junkbstr.exe"
Never trust a man in a blue trench coat, Never drive a car when you're dead
I haven't used AOL since 1996, when I got a real ISP, but their popup ads were one of the main reasons I left them. (The spam was another.) If they can't afford to provide the service I've requested at the price they agreed to charge me, and they have to put annoying popup ads in to try and get more money out of my pocket, then their business model is flawed. I should go after my credit card company for annoying me with credit card insurance plans, travel clubs, shopping clubs, and car insurance. But that's a whole other topic.
I HATE pop up ads. I realy do. But one thing that is getting lost in all this is that these ads pay for "service" or information that we want.
I'm sure almost everyone is used to banner ads, and ignores them most of the time. but relize that someone or something has to pay to get a web site up, and these ads help to pay for it.. As internet companies struggle to make profits these ads are going to become more important (also as click through rates continue to drop...)
But I'lm willing to accept the ad to get at information on the net I want for free (as in beer). It would really suck if you had to pay for content each time you accessed it.
ads are a better way.
while this lawsuit seems somewhat silly to me...i mean, most of us realize that this particular suit has little chance of doing anything but getting the ball rolling on a much larger issue at stake: advertising windows that pop up automatically. sure you can turn them off within AOL's fantasy world, but what happens when you accidentaly follow a link to a somewhat "shady" site? on occasion, you will be bombarded with 15 pop-up ad windows and other various types of pop-ups. beyond this they continue popping up quicker than you can close them. now i'll admit, you're not likely to come across this stuff unless you're searching for some obscure stuff, but still i for one get pretty ticked off during one of those deluges. so what does this AOL suit mean now?
Have you ever watched an absolute newbie trying to read some web pages? The first thing they try to click is the banner ads. I often find myself explaining, "no, don't click there, that's just an ad". Of course, gaining experience, they learn to seperate ads from real content, but it does take time.
:)
Pop-up banner ads are probably even more efficient in this respect
--
"Oppression and harassment is a small price to pay to live in the land of the free." -- Montgomery Burns.
All that you say just suggests that AOL don't provide a very good value service. That's not a reason to sue them.
The best thing you can do if you don't like it is to change ISP and tell AOL why you changed. If enough people care about this issue, they will do the same and AOL will be forced to act.
In the end, all they are doing is offering a service (which includes pop up ads) and they are offering it at a price. You get to choose whether the service as a whole is better or worse value than competing services.
This really is a minor issue which can and will be easily solved by the free market as long as people do something constructive about it (such as changing ISP if they are not happy) rather than trying to restrict the freedoms ISPs Just because YOU don't like what they offer doesn't mean they shouldn't be allowed to offer it.
-- MartinG To mail me: echo kewyjlcxyzvjfxbqwh | tr bcefhjklqvwxyz
The difference is that I don't pay by the hour to watch cable -- and that I can change the channel to find a network that's not showing commercials at that moment. Yeah, I can play a few cards in FreeCell while I'm waiting for an ad to load in AOL -- but I can't use a web browser, telnet, IRC, check my mail, FTP a few files, or do much of anything else.
What's really funny about it is that the pr0n ads on warez sites are for pay sites. Yeah! Like I'm not going to pay for software but I will pay for porn.
kwsNI
crazy as it may sound.. and annoying as they are.. which i do agree with.. pop up ads keep a lot of web services and sites free, or cheaper than they would be. advertising is the only real revenue generator that a lot of sites have. i cant agree with aol, but lets all not sue the free internet providers. thanks.
-- whistler rules
if you don't want to view doubleclick's ads, just point ads.doubleclick.net to 127.0.0.1 in your hosts file. That way, your browser will never be able to find their ads!
This is pretty dumb.
1. It IS easy to change marketing preferences (keyword preferences; click on marketing)
2. They do NOT come back on after a period of time, since I've never seen them since turning them off for my family years ago.
3. The vast majority of AOL users are on the "unlimited plan" now so there's no real issue of double-charging (though if this suit dates back to 1994 I guess there might be some merit there)
4. Lots of other services do this: cable TV, pre-paid phone cards, magazines (you mean I have to PAY for the paper it's printed on?)
Something about this suit seems fishy, like a publicity stunt. There's a bunch of other seemingly frivolous class action suits underway too (see link at bottom of CNN article). Can anybody figure out the conspiracy theory?
Pop-ups do suck, but why complain when you can just get rid of them? I've had web pop-ups disabled for a long time; I do it with a cute piece of freeware called "Proxomitron":
http://members.tripod.com/Proxomitron/
It has a lot of other (configurable) usability/privacy enhancements like disabling animated gifs and blink, not letting javascript use the status bar, etc. Plus, you can write your own regular-expression based filters!
Too bad it's only for windows; but I don't think it would be too hard for a Posix version to exist. Perhaps something like it already does.
It's a slightly different situation here in the UK (assuming you're not in the UK) - we have the BBC (1,2,3,4,5,6 and 7, of course), so we pay a licence fee for that service, and they don't show adverts. The commercial stations don't have a fee, and they show ads. A number of subscription-only cable channels don't show ads, but some do. They shouldn't, and AOL shouldn't, because users are already paying for the service. I don't object when a 'free' TV station (I use quotes because in the UK you HAVE to pay the licence fee just for owning a TV set, but I digress) shows ads, because that's how they generate revenue to run a service I use but don't pay for. If I was paying for internet access and the provider kept hitting me with pop-ups on top of that, I'd be annoyed. If a free ISP used them, I'd live with it. It's like, say, Geocities vs., say, Demon - you don't pay for Geocities, so you put up with their ad layer. You pay Demon, so you wouldn't tolerate ads there.
I used to think it was keyword spamming too (and maybe it is to some extent). Then I started using the new version of analog which gives me a report of the search terms which users use to arrive at my site. Here's one day's results:
;)
reqs: search term
----: -----------
14: quake 3 stuff
5: scanterm
3: human copulation pictures
2: wordlist.txt
2: cannibalism snuff
2: genital jewelry
1: akasha
1: aluminize
1: quake 3 levels
1: emazing
1: antigravity backpack borscht
1: barmy badger backpackers
1: ssachs
1: axolotl adaptions
1: directory listing mp3
1: aerometer
1: wordlist barons
1: argumentive analysis of advertisements
1: isthmus algorithm
1: spacebar.org
51: [not listed: 51 search terms]
"barmy badger backpackers"?? Fully 75% of these searches have NOTHING to do with my site, and I do not keyword spam in any way.
Maybe, when search engines get bored or tired, they just return more or less random results?
If you want to filter banner ads out a simple way to do it with most browsers is to use the Internet Junkbuster filtering proxy, or if you're using a fairly recent release of Mozilla you can use their image manager (Edit | Advanced | Cookies and Images or Tasks | Privacy | Image Manager) which lets you specify hosts that you'd rather not display images (such as ads.doubleclick.net), or you can only allow images that appear from the site you're viewing or you can selectively allow images by means of an interactive dialog (a similar management system applies for cookies). Hopefully the image manager will be included with the next release of Netscape 6 as it's a useful ad blocking feature.
--
Believe it or not, there are people who use AOL for five hours or less every month (for things like e-mail and visiting the occasional web site). At $9.95 per month, and about $2 for every hour after the first five, they get a better deal that way.
For more information, click here.
What I'd like to see is an ISP that promotes itself by offering an ad blocking service (using something such as the Junkbuster proxy as these ads are very irritating to those on slow connections, however I never block ads myself as I understand how many sites would not be able to operate without the income these generate, but if I was on a modem then I'd see things differently particularly if I was paying call charges.
I'd also like to see a feature where Mozilla could automatically download a blocklist from a user specified central server periodically. This would be for blocking ad images and perhaps cookies and not websites. This feature would havew to be switched on by the user and they could select the server they trust to maintain the blocklist (or companies and organisations could maintain their own).
--
I hope that AOL's defense of "it is user-configurable" gets tossed - it would set a nice precedent of companies being responsible for the default configuration of their software (can we sue MS for all the virii propagated by poor Outlook configurations?).
Yeah, then I could sue RedHat for their default installation being insecure since it almost lost me my job in the 3 days it took me to get all of the upgrades and patches applied that I needed.
Yeesh.... It's not RedHat's fault that someone found my open system before I finished patching all of the known security problems.
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
new pop-up ad for AOL, Fall 2000:
We notice you're downloading an illegal copy of the new Britney Spears album. Wouldn't you rather buy the CD at the AOL/Warner Online Music store?
[] YES []NO
Pope
Freedom is Slavery! Ignorance is Strength! Monopolies offer Choice!
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Slashdot uses a particularly hard version of banner ads to stop with junkbuster (internet.junkbuster.com) because they are coming from images.slashdot.org just like the icons.
If you want to get rid of them, add this to your sblock.ini:
images.slashdot.org
~images.slashdot.org/topics
The '~' negates whatever proceeds it. In this case, you are allowed to view images.slashdot.org/topics.
It's not banner ads on the internet that are bad. In the case of your site, nobody disputes it.
The difference between what you do and what AOL does is huge though.
You do not charge me money to see your site.
AOL *does* charge money to use their service.
Why should I have to pay to watch ads?
Why did you connect your Linux box to the net knowing that you still had security holes to patch?
There would be the issue of obtaining the aforementioned patches. I couldn't find any 'Complete up to the minute RedHat 6.0 Patch CD' for sale anywhere. So I had to download and apply all of the ones I needed. They had to come from somewhere. Where would YOU Suggest I get them?
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
Perhaps it is a sign of the times that a class-action lawsuit is brought against an ISP. Could it be that, especially in rural areas, AOL is truly the only game in town? Due to the lack of sophistication by the user, they may really believe that they have no other option then to stick with AOL. Since the class-action suit is being allowed, isn't this a sort of de-facto admission that AOL is big enough to do 'bad' things like this?
Obviously the better solution is for someone to create a different ISP that keeps its users happier, but that gets back to the technical sophistication part. There isn't enough of a marget in Dullvsille to support the staff of a new ISP, and the mid-sized ISP's aren't going to want the support headaches -- they'd be pumping a disproportionate amount of money into their low-revenue areas.
I am a lawyer, but his is not legal adivce. If you need legal advice, consult an attorney licensed in your jurisdiction.
.)
That is usually the case (though htere are ethical rules about frivolous actions). However, in a class action, it *is* the lawyers doing the choosing and suing. They have to find a representative agent, but it's really a matter of deciding to file a class action, and then finding someone who can be part of the class to be the named plaintiff.
It is *rare* that the class gets anything comparable to what teh attorneys receive. Typically, the attorneys get paid in full as part of the settlement, while the class gets pennies on the dollar for their purported (often silly) claim, or a coupon. The *only* exception I know is about Iomega's failure to pay their rebates (which is also the only class action I can think of offhand that should have been filed in the first place . .
hawk, esq.
Yes, this is on topic. AOL users have nothing to bitch about. I should sue for all of the wasted time spent on CIS, 300 baud, at $7.00/hour! :)
(B6900 refers to a Burroughs 6900...)
Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1982 22:04
From: Ken Weaverling >>>---> Ken <47869 @ UCSC-Site>
To: Bob Rahe <BOB @ UCSC-Site>
Subject: Re: Monitor
In-Reply-To: Your message of 24 Jun 1982 09:19
Message-ID: <0322.06.24.1982.22.04.44 @ UCSC-Site>
This terminal is quite nice for $399. It's an RCA. It has a modem built in, color graphics, and sound from 14 Hz to 230 KHz. (Why the heck do you need 230 KHz. I probably can't hear past 15KHz.) It even has a white noise generator. (Don't ask why).
The graphics are pretty HI-RES, 240x192, but it takes forever to draw at 300 baud. One could make impressive graphs but one won't ever see Pac-Man here! You can also hook up a cassette recorder to store a heck of a lot of data for off-line viewing.
I got a free hour on CompuServe with it. Ever been on that? They say it's simple, but it took me the whole hour just to look for one thing. The say it's menu driven. GEEEEEEZZ, they must have their menu's nested 50 levels deep!
I was looking for the multi-user Star-Trek game that I read about. Also the CB simulation (Randall probably wrote it).
The story of my quest:
After drifting thru 10 pages of menus, I found the newspapers that were on-line, so I choose New York Times. They wouldn't print the %&$#& thing out unless I subscribed! The subscription was free but they wanted name, add.... I said "SCREW IT". I could imagine how many menu's were on the other side of that subscription.
Now I had to "back up" thru the menus before I could move on. After another 10 mins. I found the home entertainment menu! I was getting closer. I didn't see Star-Trek but I did see "ELIZA - Artificial Intelligence". I decided to try it out, real quick.
This program CompuServe has (called DISPLA) is polite. Instead of saying #SCHED 1234 it says "Please wait. I am processing your request." Sure, I think that the computer down there realizes that it's getting paid by the hour. After 2-3 mins., it starts "Tell me what's on your mind." After 5 mins I was ready to leave, "QUIT, BYE, STOP, " nothing worked. She just kept saying, "Your "Tell me what's on your mind." After 5 mins I was ready to leave, "QUIT, BYE, STOP, " nothing worked. She just kept saying, "Your being short with me.". I was getting desperate, I started punching all the control codes I could. I stoped the program but I hung the terminal. Oh, well. Call back. Back to the first menu page. But I was getting better, I typed "GO HOM" and I went straight to the home entertainment section. After about 200 more menus (estimate) I found "CB simulation"! Quick, read doc. Got it, run CB. "Please wait......". After 5 mins it comes back "Your free hour is up. Would you like to subsribe?".
All that and I never saw the program. For $5.00/hr plus $2 for Telenet, they can forget it.
THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE HOME ON THE B6900 !!!!!!!!!
>>>----> Ken
You get them from RetHat's site. Using a machine that is secure. And put them on a floppy. Duh.
Oh gee yes, I'll just fire up this SECOND computer I have laying over here that just happens to have a secure install of RH on it already. Silly me, why didn't I think of that....
We don't all have multiple linux boxen strewn about our homes.
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
What I would like to see, is a lawsuit against porn sites who grab the 100 most searched words and put them in their meta tags for search engines to find
What actually happens is extortion. There are mafia-like organizations that jump on any "legitimate" domain name that is let expire (maybe because the original owner did not pay the registration fee in time) or domain names that have a familiar ring to it. They then add a site under this domain name, filled with porn or other "inflammable" material. Often, real companies do not want to be associated with the filth, and then pay money to get hold of the domain name.
For instance, my company had a product line named "Amplitaq Gold", and a website 'amplitaqgold.com'. Not exactly the kind of domain name you would come up with out of the blue. The domain was let expire after we didn't need it any more; the day after it was filled with pointers to a porn site in Russia.
To make matters worse, searches on Altavista for terms related to our company, our product lines etc would invariably turn up pointers to this stuff.
We got the domain name back through legal action. However, not everybody would go through that hazzle, and would rather buy the domain name back even if it meant giving in to the Russian mafia.
And you were talking about work, not home. Is this really your very first computer at work? In 2000? No wonder they almost fired you.
No, I was not talking about work dumbass. I was talking about my home machine.
Yeesh... It's a rather long story but someone compromised my home machine and used it to attack someone, when I logged into my home machine from work to get some work done it got traced back to there and they called the company I work for.
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji