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Class Action Filed Against Bonzi Software
An anonymous reader writes: "A nationwide class action lawsuit was filed on November 25, 2002, in the Superior Court of Spokane County against Bonzi Software, Inc. Bonzi is among the world's most prolific issuers of internet advertising banners. Bonzi's website has been ranked as one of the most frequently visited websites in the world. In case you are wondering Bonzi is the company responsible for those irritating popup ads which say things like 'Your computer is broadcasting an internet IP Address...' and 'Your internet connection is not optimized ...'" The attacking lawyers provide some samples of the ads they say are misleading.
My boss DOESN'T know that I'm looking at porn while I'm at work? That's a relief.
Yeah! NUKE THE BASTARDS!
I always hated those ads. Not because I ever clicked on one. But they made me think, if my mom saw one of those, she'd think it was a Windows message and click the Ok button.
Donate background CPU time to fight cancer.
That's the problem is so many people think it's a great thing, and so they install it only to wonder why they're system's messed up later on.
I vote we just declare open season on these guys.
*looks around for LART*
I've never actually gotten one of those advertisements before; but I can see why they'd want to sue the living hell out of these people.
I can just imagine grandma, or someone not so adept at using computers thing this stuff is real; that's uh.. bad?. Yeah.
That, and I'm happy anytime a Spammer gets sued.
Waahooo!
I'm tired of hearing from people, "It said my computer was broadcasting!"
Stupid is as stupid does.
You mean, an ad that's shaped exactly like the widget set for the most widely installed OS in the world is misleading, just because it makes people think they're clicking on a native os dialog? THAT'S CRAZY!
Seriously though, this is exactly what suing is for...making companies pay when they cross the line. Now if we can just get those misleading domain renewal notice companies strung up...
It's hard enough to get my mom to use Yahoo. These windows error like popups make it even harder.
Why hasn't Microsoft gone after them for using the likeness of Windows(TM)?
' . . . to unexpectedly find both computer and computer user thus hijacked to defendants' commercial website. '
I find the use of the word 'hijacked' interesting. Is this in the legal filing? How does one make a case based on that word. Sad that court cases often come down to semantics when most people today aren't that grammatically correct. And, yes, that does incluse myself.
If you don't like this . . . MOD someone else up.
If so, I hope they throw the book at them.
- This and all my posts are public domain. I am a Physicist. I am not your Physicist. This is not Physically advice
Hotmail/MSN uses similar ads - some with flashing colours and moving windows images. Maybe they should sue MSN too :)
I've long been tempted to ask the UK Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) to investigate those banners.
I've lost count of the number of support calls both at work and from friends at home relating to them.
They are designed to be confused with genuine windows messages, rather than adverts, they are designed to install fear and confusion into the standard user, basically they are deliberately misleading and scaremongering adverts, which are illegal in the UK.
I hope Bonzi are bankrupted over this case.
It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity. --Albert Einstein
He's so cute, he can speak and sing songs while you're trying to code, and help you in your internet searches by reporting everything you do.
Who needs friends when you can have a BonziBuddy?
True warriors use the Klingon Google
Since class-action suits were used to push de-facto legislation in the sixties, it became precedent to require that all class-action cases require signatures from ALL constituents that will be affected. This might just be here in Texas (I know there was trouble with school busing issues), but if it is at the national level, then signatures from all users who have been deceived would be required.
Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.
I don't know how many time I've had to deal with a customer calling up demanding to know why we are broacasitng their IP address to hackers. Not to mention stupid employees installing bonzi buddy all over their companies servers.. guess who gets to clean that cerap up? The tech, thankfully, not me..
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It's just that yours is stupid.
I've seen those advertisements. According to their complain, apparently I'm entitled to $505. Do I have to sign up to qualify for money if they win? Can some lawyer enlighten us as to the nature of this class action stuff?
Good.
Hopefully they'll win, be awarded huge damages, and then we'll see noticably fewer adverts preying on the less computer-knowledgable...
I'm pretty sure bonzi can't be the only culprits, unless they're responsible for far more ads than this site bothers to mention...
It said I was broadcasting the IP address 243.65.42.656
It's almost as though they think we're retarded...
Spammers have bacome more and more annoying and "clever", using for example Windows messenger and referrer-flooding.
I thought of another way for spammers to spew their crap: Slashdot. Hey, if Slashdot doesn't delete ascii-goatse-pictures why would they delete "Increase your penis size NOW!"-posts? Sure, the messages would be stuck at -1, but so what. Some cretin will always click the links...
The class action Complaint was brought on behalf of all persons residing in the United States who have... encountered an advertising banner [from Bonzi].
The Complaint asks [for] punitive damages against Bonzi in the amount of $500 per class member, as well as compensatory damages in the amount of $5.00 per deceptive advertising banner issued by Bonzi.
Well, I gotta say, lots of luck. $500 for every Internet user in America, plus $5 for every ad impression? Certainly it'd teach these jerks a lesson, but it doesn't really seem very likely. That'd be something like $100 billion. The tobacco companies, one of the biggest lawsuits ever, only paid three times that amount, and that was spread among several companies. No way a judge is awarding this.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
I know the lawyers will get 90% of these damages, but wooohoooo, I hope it puts Bonzia out of business.
Anyone know Bonzia's IP address? I'm going to log it in my firewall, then join the lawsuit, with my logs as proof that I was deceived by these scoundrels.
Is it just me, or does it seem that this is being done more as a source of income for the Lawyers, than an actual "lets remove the scurge" activity.
The big winners from this exercise will be the lawyers, surely?? And what about people who have been bamboozled who do not live in the USofA?
I think this represents an important legal challenge to protect and limit these sorts of activities. I think it is sad that companies feel a need to deceive in order to get business, but at least these class actions can do something to redress the balance.
---- The Open Source Record Label : : LOCARECORDS.COM
If they really wanted a killer example, they would show the one that says "You have a message waiting". It made it look like, indeed, you had an extremely urgent message waiting. I never did know what it led to, I never fell for it, but I can distinctly remember my mom asking me why she couldn't get the message she had waiting, and why she just got bombarded with ads. It's good that someone is finially doing something about it.
Sure, advertisers try sneaky new things, but it's a darwinian process: for every ad, there's a counter: popup-blocking, ad-server blocking, and so forth. The problem is being handled in the marketplace. Sending Lawyers with dollar signs in their eyes into the mix is not a prescription for a more efficient internet.
Holy cow! 280,000,000 * $500 + n * $5 (where n is large an undetermined...)
Does anyone remember the early porn banners that were doing this?
"Movie downloading?"
You know that something is low and bad (tm) when even the porn industry shys away from it as a form of advertising. I was surprised when I started seeing these because it harked back to earlier days of those annoying porn ads that tried to look like UI components.
I guess bonzi didn't quite catch on -- and quite frankly, its about fscking time that someone finally said, "You're obnoxious, annoying, and we've had enough!"
When in doubt, parenthesize. At the very least it will let some poor schmuck bounce on the % key in vi. (Larry Wall)
aren't they the same ppl that created this wonder of spyware "bonzibuddy" with a little monkey character that would progressively ask you most of your personal info (including Credit Card numbers and the like) for the sakeness of "user - friendlyness" ???
The "broardcasting an ip" one irritates me.
Web surfing traffic isn't broardcast, it dosn't go out everywhere on the network, it is just passed along a path through the routers to the website and back.
If it said "transmitting an ip address" I'd be less irritated since then it would be just overestimating the risk, not blatantly untrue.
I like mozilla for allways putting a window frame around popups so its more obvious that the messages are not realy windows messages.
My mom actually believed it. LOL!!! She came to me and said, "Uh, I think there's something wrong with the computer." Judging by the tone of her voice I said, "Oh, shit, what did you manage to do this time?" I got to the computer and I asked her what in the Hell she clicked on. I was rolling on the floor after that one!!! What's even funnier is that she was using a Mac!!! You gotta love that one! Those guys are geniuses in they're own respect. They deserve the honor of getting sued for it IMO.
www.goat.. ah screw it.
my $500 in case the plantiffs win?... or is this another class action suit to make rich lawyer bastards like the acrylamide infested french fries suit in CA?
believe me, I hold no symphathy for the bonzi. i so hate those ads. BUT you just gotta hate lawyers who do this thing for a living
so.. how does it work? where's my check? or is it all going to the fat laywer's pocket. i saw no mention on how to join the class action
*shower*
The ads click on you.
and
the boss makes porn by looking at you while you work.
(yes that IS improperly formatted, but I think it's funny so stuff it)
Sex - Find It
The amount of harm done isn't really that great. So people go to their website by mistake. The result is that perhaps people will learn not to click on it again. It only took them a few minutes. I feel that anyone who makes the same mistake twice is an idiot who should probably be kept away from the internet.
I am of course totally biased here. This benefits me indirectly. The continued success of these ads means that they keep advertising, and this keeps the sites I like free[ish]. Essentially, I think its good that there's at least some succesful internet advertising.
Ya gotta give these people credit.
They did not copy the windows elements for wmaker, blackbox, kde or macos X. So in my boxen, this would look about as close to a *real* UI as any other piece of web advertisement. They utilize tools a majority of the internet public use. With a healthy dose of shockwave/flash with a touch of java. The advertising is targeted to Netscape/Mozilla and IE users. So this would mostly affect users who are utilizing IE or Netscape/Mozilla on windows with all the *neat* toys installed.
A very quick and easy solution to all the advertising is to utilize text based browsers. Other solutions include using a proxy based scrubber, choosing a browser that is not a target, turn off javascript, restrict graphics.
I think the class action law firm is going to have a very steep hill to climb before someone clubs them over the head
As about 95% of the computers in the world use the same OS, it is very easy to generate false error messages such as in this banners.
The same happens in natural ecosystems: the more homogeneous is a population, the higher the risk of oportunist infections and parasites.
The best solution to this problem, instead of fighting each oportunist separately, is to create an environment where computational diversity could develop.
To begin, in your own interest, never ever again buy a computer with an OS so easy to attack.
"It's almost as if they think we're retarded."
Quite true, but sadly... I think the majority of users being hit with these ads aren't all that computer-savvy. I mean, AOL is still the most widely used ISP isn't it? Wouldn't that logically imply that since it's well-known for being granny/kiddie/etc friendly, a good chunk of internet users are in fact "retarded" in the context of this topic?
The problem, as I see it, isn't with Bonzi. They're a company, if they can do something to increase their profits I say more power to them. The problem arises when people can't distinguish between your advertising and messages from their OS that seem to be rather urgent.
Someone needs to beat whoever okays these ads as "a good idea, people will really like it I bet!" with a heavy stick. The average consumer these days may not be all that sharp but that doesn't mean we enjoy being exploited.
I am not a man, I am a free number.
If this succeeds, it will set a major precedent - and in my opinion, a really good one. I'm fed up with misleading, stupid advertisements - I quit watching TV because I didn't like ads, and now that I've been away from TV for so long I can't bear to watch it for more than 30 minutes because the commercials drive me mad. I'm all for supporting websites by looking at banner ads, but shit like these bonzi ads are not only annoying, but they cause no end of trouble for me. My mother and sister not only keep asking me about them, but my sister has clicked OK and Yes on them and installed shit on my computer, and the only way I can explain it is "don't do that". I for one will be glad even if this case settles for minute damages ($0.01 per class member or even less than that would be fine for me - just kick bonzi's ass at least a little bit!)
using namespace slashdot;
troll::post();
It has to do with force. Just as in "breaking and entering." No crime if there was no forcable entry. That becomes tresspassing. Just a thought.
If you don't like this . . . MOD someone else up.
"But really, let's admit to it, the creativeness required to think up faking an error screen to get users to click on it (think reaction vs. action) is genius. I'm not sure this suit has any merit at all...and even if it does it really shouldn't."
What on earth does this mean? If the suit has merit, that means that the advertising was both deceptive and harmful. I admire a good grifter as much as the next guy, but these people are still thieves (or perhaps vandals) and that kind of shst ought to be against the law. Nor are laws against fraud the sort of bad laws (like, say, the DMCA) where a bit of civil disobedience is tolerable. There are three reasons that fraud like this (Bonzi Schemes, if you'll excuse the pun) should be illegal:
1. Harm to end users. Whether it's lost time, lost money, spyware-infested PCs, or just a general devaluation of warning messages (making their computer cry wolf...) the results are harmful for users.
2. Harm to the market. When users are confused about whether something is an advertisement, they make decisions on bad information. This rewards the wrong sort of economic behavior -- the company that can best trick people wins instead of the company with the best product.
3. Harm to society. We don't want our best and brightest to believe that the easiest way to get ahead is to steal or hurt other people. We would like them to go into productive activities that generate new wealth, not unethical and deceptive practices that siphon off wealth from others.
So yeah, if the suit has merit then it should have merit. This is exactly the kind of thing that users, the market, and society as a whole need a good set of laws to handle.
Make cheese not war 8:)
I've noticed in print magazines that pseudo-editorials ("advertorials") that look similar to the rest of the mag, but which are advertising, always have a "note: advertising feature" or similar at the top of the page so that readers don't confuse the ad with mag content.. I would guess that there's a law or advertising standard somewhere which requires this, right? (Maybe only here in .au..) So it should be easy to extend to banners and pop-ups, too... wouldn't it be interesting if websites were categorised as media publications....
*meep*
Sure, some people think those error messages are real but I'm having a hard time thinking of this as deceptive advertisements. Anybody who clicks on these things should quickly realize that they are ad banners disguised as error messages. If they want to sue over this, why not sue beer companies because you're not immediately surrounded by half-naked babes as soon as you open an ice cold Bud?
Does this
Reading your comments again, I wonder if maybe you were being sarcastic...But you're saying that the scourge of deceptive popup ads is laudable because it represents some sort of "innovation in business?"
:)
.NET ads here on Slashdot. They make me chuckle.
You work for Microsoft, don't you?
Yeah, Enron's accounting methods were very "innovative" as well. And I have a novel new take on "beach front property" for sale in Nevada.
Ihe ads in question, which I see constantly as I visit the crappy sites I for some reason go to, are *deceptive*. Like others have said, the popups are designed to look like a Windows dialog box, and trick teh n00bs into clicking them.
When you're looking at a magazine or newspaper, the ads that sorta look like articles are clearly labelled ADVERTISEMENT across the top. Sometimes in magazines you get a whole eight pages of advertising "streamed" with the regular content, but it's definitely identifiable and identified as advertising. Those "Click here to optimize your Internet connection" fakey dialogboxes are intended to decieve.
I'm actually kinda surprised Microsoft hasn't done anything about this (of course, maybe that's what the article says. I didn't read it, and I'm not going to. Nyeah.)
It's really funny, too, how pop-ups have changed over time. Soon we are going to see a lot more of the default Windows XP "clue-free blue" motif in those ads as everyone buys new computers. Really, they ought to be putting these popups in a time capsule, and in 20 years we can all laugh about the good old days with our friends we keep in touch with, thanks to ClassMates.com.
And in conclusion, I actually do hate everything that has anything to do with advertisement on the Internet. Except I kinda like the
In your browser, select the Edit menu and click preferences.
Now go to:
Advanced->Scripts & Plugins
Under 'Allow scripts to:' uncheck 'Open unrequested windows'.
Well, the solution is easy. Download Mozilla 1.2 and when you see one of those pesky banners, right click it and select "Block images from this Server". Your bandwith is reduced and your eyes get a rest.
280,000,000 * $500 + n * $5 (where n is large an undetermined...)
You should parenthesise to remove abiguity:
(280,000,000 * $500) + (n * $5) (where n is large an undetermined...)
Get your own free personal location tracker
i say that the creator and owner(s) of this company get data murdered. WHO ? NEVER HEARD OF THEM. hmmm...that's odd, your ss# is, um, null. ...and that the facilitator of such creates a nice video stream of such activity and hosts it on a site that wont get slashdotted. :)
*GRIN
Yes, Bonzi is indeed responsible for that ugly purple fucking "Bonzi Buddy" gorilla which has infested your system. Unfortunately, not even inserting bananas into the CD-ROM will get rid of that pesky bugger. He comes installed with a hidden she-gorilla (%windir%\bonzi\mister_miyagi\gorilyamama) which allows him to reproduce like crazy.
Proposed sentence for the accused: Send them deep into the Amazon jungle to get a little attention from Manuel the Love Monkey.
I went on their page and all they had were these three annoying banner ads, WTF!
I'll sue them after I finished with America Online though, everytime I start that F#$ker up, it says I have mail, then I go to my front porch and check, no mail!
And so I clicked an banner that said I could optimize my internet connection but instead a porn site came up, my mom came into the room and went like beep beep beep.
hi
:-)
running a squid proxy going to a privoxy proxy and no more adds no more popups
just browse the web as it was ment to be browsed
Now this is what a class action should be all about. My only question is why the FTC hasn't gotten involved in this before now? The government has to really step up their activity against misleading advertisers. Gator, you're next!
Fellow /.ers, this item has given us the opportunity to /. a lawyer and they're STILL UP!.
Must try harder!
As it is a form of censorship and a burden to the owners of the copyright music itselfs!
If the cab driver is the owner of the copyright of the music he is playing... does he has to pay the fee?
The world is strange indeed...
---
This posting is protected by copyright. If you read it you must pay a copyright royalty to the human empire copyright association.
...but then I do most of my surfing on a Sun Ultra 1 at work, so the first time I saw one of these banners, it was rather obvious that it wasn't a message from the operating system. The fact that the "dialogue box" scrolls when you move the page is a bit of a giveaway too.
I don't think these particular adverts are any more annoying than any other banners, but I haven't had to clean up after anyone who was suckered into installing whatever malware these guys were pushing. Even my girlfriend, who went through a phase of merrily installing anything she could get her hands on, never asked me why her computer was telling her that her 'net connection wasn't fast enough, and why the software that was supposed to fix it was plastered with adverts.
Just another wannabe fantasy novelist...
isn't gator the one responsible for those dialog boxes appearing when viewing a site which apparently is a dialog box asking you to install some software into your computer? precision time, date manager, and gator ewallet? this tricks many not-so-knowledgeable users into clicking ok, thinking that you must click ok to view that particular site.
so what about gator?
B O N Z A I
Am I the only person that thinks this is funny? I torture the crap out of our IS guys with it. We'll be getting to the end of a marathon meeting and I'll ask them if they finally stopped broadcasting our IP addresses for just anyone to see and connect to.
I think they're getting back at me with some weird HTTP proxy filter. For some reason, when I go to Slashdot, I see every story twice.
Ah, so this is the self-centred geek sense of superiority I've heard so much about. And I was just beginning to think that most techs were nice and would help people if they got into trouble. I know quite a few people who fall for these things, one of whom is currently signing up for her second degree course, so she's not, by any means, an imbecile.
I put forward the suggestion, that you are the imbecile for possessing such an aloof (probably false) sense of superiority over those less knowlegable about computers. Either that or a troll, whom I should probably not be feeding.
To put it another way, would you like a professor of computer science calling you an imbecile for not, say, being able to create a Turing Machine to convert some logic expression to its native CNF and thus, given the values of the predicates, solve the equation? Or to draw up a basic circuit diagram of a microcomputer capable of solving polynomial equations? After all, if you don't understand computers you shouldn't be using them, right?
1. Find out the host name for that URL.
2. Add that host name to your
3. Change the IP address for that host name to 127.0.0.1.
Your hosts file should look something like this:Now, every time a banner tries to pop up, you don't get the extra traffic to the banner site, and you have slayed one more hydra.
CIRA (www.cira.ca) the .ca registrar and the competition bereau of canada sued the "Internet registry of canada" not that it is not an official registry but simply a reseller as cira the actual registrar does not sell domains but only sells through resellers.
The full story I wont bother writing but you can read it below. Canadians rejoice we dont have to take this sh!t.
http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/SSG/ct02442e.html
Just because you find something annoying doesn't mean it should be against the law.
Think of it as disturbing the peace. Do I have the right to crank my stereo outside your house a 2 AM at full volume, playing my favorite music?
Just because you find something annoying doesn't mean it should be against the law.
Some posters are idiots, post your real address and I will bring my gear over some night and give you a dose of what is against the law in every State in America. Oh, you are prolly some foreign douchebag...nevermind. Pussy.
of that episode of Ally Mcbeal where they suid the telemarketers ?
:-)
Well I only saw like ten minutes, my GF is a fan, I'm not, did they win ?
If they did - does that count as legal precedent
Anyway I guess we can safely asume that lawyers have moved beyond L.A. Law for inspiration....
"Semper in excretum set alta variant"
in court they should be shown a dialog which says "to plead innocent press OK now!"
Little do they they just pleaded guilty hahaha
Head here for a taste of what I'm talking about: http://www.wa.gov/biia/890723.htm Why is this bad news? Well - hit this http://www.lukins.com/bonzi/files/complaint.pdf and you'll understand. If not, I'll spell it out. EVEN IF this were to be taken seriously (not bloody likely), it looks really bad when the class representative (Philip J. Carstens) is the same dude who sued and won against his current employer for breaking a crown while lounging at work and eating their candy. It's kind of like the story about the burglar who sued for being trapped for 8 days in the garage of the house that he burgled - with "nothing" to survive on, save a case of soft drinks and a bag of dry dog food. Stupid, stupid, stupid. It's a shame that we can't have someone who hasn't rolled in shit before to take a stand. Like ... Neil Schwartzman! Or his attorney, anyway. :)
Anyway ... this will go down in flames, and won't do any good - the large spam/ad houses can soak up the "annoyances" of lawsuits, and the small ones are becoming pretty obscure. Also ... does it occur to anyone that this is some stunt to say, "Hey! We now do that Internet Law Thingy (tm)!" - like a big Yellow Pages ad.
Stupid, stupid, stupid. Wait ... God - WA is in the 9th Circuit ... hm. Those guys'll just take this and run with it. Woo-hoo! I'm waiting for my cash.
Aren't many of these intended to look like error messages from Windows XP, etc. so that people click on them?
In this case, I'm surprised (well, not totally) Microsoft hasn't filed some sort of claim against them for copyright (or some such) infringement. Is look-and-feel copyrightable? Aren't they damaging Microsoft's brand image (by posting fraudulent "error messages"? Have there been cases of companies being sued for copying the look-and-feel of another brand?
Thanks,
Justin
as an employee for an ISP I can say that these adds are deceptive for many people, while in the help desk it happened to me a few times to talk to some irate people that knew little to nothing about computers because they though there were some serious problems with their internet connection speed or security...
i know we're headed stragiht for it, but we need to stop internet laws. for the past 10 years its been free flowing mass, democratizing the world. yet when something like a popup ad annoys people, they want to sue. i dont understand it. i thought the people here were against any regulation of the internet.
no ambiguity, unless you don't know basic order of precidence.
Get the EULA T-shirt
>.. But really, let's admit to it, the creativeness required to think up faking an error screen to get users to click on it (think reaction vs. action) is genius.
Yeah, and crashing planes on buildings is one the most creative way of killing people in public I've always seen. Now should we call the terrorists creativity genius?
Why don't you judge the *purpose* of the action and the implied effects, say making money on fooled people?
Advertising has *always* been deceiving; fake alerts are just one of the many ways people are screwed by advertisers.
> how exactly do they expect to allow people
;-p
> to connect to the internet *without*
> 'broadcasting' the IP address?
You're not quite right in saying this doesn't make any sense, because _in theory_ they _could_ provide a service that routes the web traffic of the average luser through a proxy that is more secure than their own machine, effectively hiding their IP from the servers they connect to, and making their internet surfing more secure indeed.
Yes, _in reality_ the company does something entirely different. I don't know what at all, because I never clicked on one of those banners, but considering how sound and legitimate their banner looks, it's obvious that they're _really_ crooked...
Anyway, everyone who uses a web proxy is 'not broadcasting' his IP address and gets the requested pages back just fine
but what do i know, i'm just a model.
I hate everything about him!!! Just read the description of him here(I hope you are as happy as I with the CGI redirect the page forces upon the user).
the illusion of artificial life... Illusion!? WTF? Bonzi becomes more intelligent the more you browse... Just like The CIA becomes more intelligent the more they tap?
This cute gorilla is a good companion for beginners who want to explore the Internet in a fun way. For experienced Net users, it has a certain entertainment value but does not replace more professional tools.
Isn't that a weird way to end the description? It's almost like they're covering their asses or something.
At any rate, there is no concealing or withholding the pure hatred and animosity I feel for this abomination by the name of Bonzi Buddy...Blech, I spit.
I'm sorry, but did no one else read "FUI" as fooey?
It's actually an interesting technique ; if you DO confess to falling for this, then well you aren't too bright and would think twice about letting someone else know. I guess that's why its been so successful. Well, I guess an easy follow up to this can be a simple error message, with an OK button.
Your computer is broadcasting your IP address
P.S : Please ignore this message if you are running Linux.
|/________
|\A|ALYS|
Um, ya, in a lot of places that's against the law, especially places other than urban areas. [In the United States that is]
The basic rule of thumb for determining whether your interaction with another adult human is "right" or "fair" is: Is it consensual? Do both parties agree to the exchange?
Fraud and deceit work into the equation of figuring out whether both parties agree to the terms of interaction because, if the terms of that interaction are not represented fairly, then it is impossible to make a decision to consent or not, based on the information at hand.
This company is, of course, intentionally trying to misrepresent the terms of communication between themselves and their customers, because they know that if they accurately represented who they were and what they were offering, nobody would click on the links. Thus, when someone clicks the link because they think it's a dialog box, they are not consenting to view advertising about a product or service. Hence, fraud or deceit. This is bad.
If you didn't know all this before you read my post, please go back to kindergarten and try to get a good grade on "plays well with others" before being passed up to the next grade by your public education system. Thank you.
Make a FAQ, I'd like to see the answer you give them.
They may be lawyers, but they sure as hell can't make a website.
Missing html, head, title, etc...ew ew ew...
And we are supposed to think they can get through with this lawsuit?
(yes, I'll also send this to their 'webmonkey')
-- Tino Didriksen / Project JJ
The attacking lawyers provide some samples of the ads they say are misleading.
Ah, the wonders of Mozilla...
I think it was one of the first sites I blocked.
I can just see a server running your suggestion now:
"Hmmm. Mozilla on Linux. Crap! what theme is he running. Well, I can guess it's not KDE, since he's not running Konq. But is he running Sawfish, Blackbox, or TWM95? Crux, or one of those themes from Bowie Poag?
Screw it - he's probably blocking me anyway."
www.eFax.com are spammers
These ads remind me a little of cleaning products ads, the ones that portray germs everywhere and you must buy new "PineOClean Deluxe Floor Cleaner" to get rid of them. I'm convinced these ads, while based on a small amount of truth, play a significant part in encouraging the germ paranoia in society.
These banners ads are the same - well, yes, strictly speaking you ARE sending your IP address, and yes, hackers can use that against you, but you and I know that in 99.9999999% of cases it's a non-issue. But your mum doesn't, nor does mine. So, they will become increasingly paranoid. And that's bad for all of us - like many of you, I make my living off the net. More paranoid = less willingess to try new things = less money spent on the net = less money for my family.
So let's sue the bastards. What the legal grounds are, I'll leave to the lawyers. That's just the reason I *want* to see them go down.
Read reviews of shopping cart software
Seen a lot of posts on this story but nobody has broached the second question that comes into my mind when I see these ads..
What does their software do to stop you 'broadcasting an IP address' ?
(The first question that comes to mind is, of course, what do they mean by 'broadcasting'; I would guess that they mean that if you go to a website then that website can see your IP. Hence my second question.)
Look guys, there's a simple way to get rid of these people: every time you see one of their ads, click on it 10 times, then move on. They almost certainly pay a significant amount of money for click-throughs, so you can readily drive them out of business pretty quickly.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
After reading many such tales of class-action lawsuits, I can predict the results:
So, in essence:
Note i'm not suggesting the employees are blameless here, but they are regular people, i'm sure, who just go to work every day.
Somehow, this doesn't seem to be much of a deterrent to setting up a spamhaus. What's to stop them from setting up another deceptive spam outfit using the capital from this firm? They made out, after all.
A good way to make civil penalties hurt those responsible is what is needed. Perhaps limit the protection that corporations provide their officers/stockholders? Let civil penalties for corporations translate into incarceration for those responsible for such damages? Seems harsh, almost un-American, but where is the solution otherwise?
Otherwise, the whole thing seems futile.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Actually, while I'm here, regarding the "Your Internet Connection is Not Optimized" message, does their software include features to disable seeing this popup once it's installed?
If you install their software and still get the "....Not Optimized" popup, then I think the lawsuit deserves to, and will, succeed.
Next, I would have to PAY for my bonzi buddy !
My boss, the "LAN Manager" where I work fell for this one. She had a printscreen of it and was asking me if I had ever seen the error message before. I almost died on the spot.
I did those those irritating "ip warnig" pop-ups in a Windows 98 box with IE. Now I'm back to using debian-woody and I've installed privoxy.
Privoxy is the success to the Internet Junkbuster and I'm very happy with it, along with galeon and mozilla.
The less junk/java/java-script/shockwave non-sense (I could use foul language here), the better.
You can find privoxy on sourceforge.
e.
It is not a done deal.
Sure this law firm has filed the law suit, but until the judge certifies it as a class action, it is worthless.
There are plenty of class action suites filed each year, but only very, very few are certified with this many people (two or three a year).
Who knows, if Bonzi is a private company, they could just shutdown and boom, no more ads, and no money...
BWP
I don't like the trend towards scare tactics in advertising. Pharmacutical companies with the "Every year 10s of thousands of people die a slow and painful death from _____... Ask your doctor if the _____ is right for you..." pitch... "Your PC is broadcasting an IP Address... hackers can use it to gain access to your computer click here for magic solution..."
It's got to stop. Using fear to generate business is just one shade of grey from coersion. I hope the lawyers clean their clocks.
$G
-- $G
Oh, wait a minute...
It seems like the vast majority of you are saying that you aren't tricked by these ads, but you moms are....guys, you should know better than to let you your mom use the intarweb unsupervised.
Question everything
All I've seen in the discussion so far are people mentioning pop-ups that look like Windows dialog boxes, and 'Your Computer Is Broadcasting an IP address'...but what about those pop-ups that look like Windows Explorer...I would think that would be even more confusing to an average user than a dialog box.
The other FTC:
FTC - FaceTheCrowd.com
Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. it's the only thing that ever has.
Bonzi Privacy Statement
..."
;)
Highlights:
"...we also collect e-mail addresses from users
who send us support mail or request technical or other help..."
"... our servers log your IP address
"... we share web site usage information about visitors to our sites with such company for the purpose of managing and targeting advertisements on our sites. For this purpose, we and our third-party advertising company note some of the pages you visit on our sites through the use of pixel tags (also called clear gifs)..."
"Our sites contain links to sites other than our own. Those sites may not follow the same privacy policies as BONZI.COM."
There is no link from the BonziBuddy page to any of this information. But you'd probably expect that
I wonder why it's so hard to run an Ad supported website these days? This kind of litigation makes me sick.
People who think they know everything really piss off those of us that actually do.
I don't think that most of Slashdot readers will be tricked. We have HOST file. What our moms and other computer "users" will do. And they are majority of computer users. I laughed my ass off seeing those banners. Someone elsi will click on it and install. Scary
One problem I've been wondering about with most Windows browsers (not sure about Netscape, I haven't trusted them since 4.x, and it's tendacy to completely nuke Win9x with every error): Bonzi, and CometCursor both pop up an ActiveX prompt asking if I want to install their spyware.
My question is pretty simple, why is it that the ActiveX prompt has a checkbox for "Always trust software from such and such", but none for "Never trust software from such and such", or at least a "Never ask me again" checkbox? This just strikes me as remarkably stupid. Especially since there's a lot of cleaning up one would have to do if anyone makes the mistake of checking off the "Always trust" box, when prompted to install spyware into their browser.
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
Your webpage was just advertised on Slashdot! This website is funneling a huge amount of traffic at yo
--- +++
NO CARRIER
I hate annoying ads as much as the next person but I don't think that makes it illegal. Let's take a look at the ads they have listed.
'Your computer is currently broadcasting an internet IP address. With this address, someone can immediately begin attacking your computer.'
'Your current connection may be capable of faster speeds. Download InternetBoost now.'
'Your Internet Connection is not optimized. Download InternetBoost 2001 now.'
I don't see how those are all that deceptive except for maybe the last one since I seriously doubt they check to make sure your 'Internet Connection is not optimized'.
Oh but it looks like a Windows message. I guess by that logic we should file a class action suit against Walmart for all their generic brands products that look like the non-generic version. Or maybe we should sue McDonalds because their Big n Tasty looks bigger and tastier in the commercials. We all know Hamburglar is a thief, why wouldn't he try to rip us off?
Seems kind of hypocritical to me that most people here are pro-lawsuit on this issue but then on most other issues are all worried about government control and frivalous lawsuits.
it is pretty funny to see a dire warning about my firewall. Sort of like the daily IIS hack attempts I see in apache's log. good ole OpenBSD!
The minute they see Mozilla on Linux they could just pop up one of two ads for a click:
1) MS dissed on SlashDot! Read all about it here!
2) 1337 H4x0r g1rls h3r3!!!
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
Come to think of it, it may not be some sort of requirement to add the "Paid Advertisement" disclaimer, it may be some thinking by the newspaper editor to avoid complaints from stoopid people who might buy the advertised product and be disappointed.
I don't know if TV stations are required to post their "The following is a paid commercial advertisement for "Girls Gone Wild Snoop Doggy Style", or if this is something the TV channels choose to do no their own...
Does anyone know if any type of consumer protection agency requires such a disclaimer, or is it done by the media outlet?
Why not require Bonzi to do the same?
E-mail spam should be treated just as fax advertising... Slap them with fines and the society will benefit from it.
Those of you complaining about this must not be in the Internet Business.... I for one am glad, I get sick and tired of customers computers coming into the office with that Bonzi Buddy crap on it, I hate the pop up ads, and atleast 5-7 times a day I get calls from people that say "I know I shouldn't have done this, but:.." and is usually followed by whatever popup they clicked on
You don't know how the economy works. Bonzi is a drain on the economy. The people working for bonzi would be better put to use working for some other company that might happen to buy ads on internet sites.
Maybe now Symantec will take my claims of registering bonzi buddy as a virus seriously. *evil grin*
I always wondered what "Phooey" meant. Now I know.
Do not confuse duty with what other people expect of you; they are utterly different.Duty is a debt you owe to yourself.
eh?
did they make bonzai buddy? if they did they can rot in h3ll. I have never installed it, but I know lots of middle aged people have and the stories are all the same "can't remove this evil thing!"
shit-fountain link
My server
This year's Homeland Security Act grants liability protection to corporations which are currently involved in class action lawsuits regarding their products.
This provision gives liability protection to Eli Lilly and other pharmaceutical companies that make a mercury-based vaccine preservative (Thimerasol) that leads to autism in children. It is unclear if the bill pertains only to the "safety" of products, or if it will protect Bonzi in this case.
But anyhow, in addition to compromises to the Freedom of Information Act, exempting Homeland Security Dept from the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), and other compromises to our privacy, the bill will seriously undermine corporate accountability,loaded with just about all the bells and whistles Republicans and corporations wanted.
I ran a banner ad for my GPS software company which was designed to look like a Windows dialog. It got a 5 percent clickthrough rate, when the average clickthrough rate was 0.5 percent. (It was running on an outdoor mapping website, so it was targetted advertising as well.)
Here's the banner ad.
Is it effective? Very.
Is it misleading? A bit.
Is it illegal? I don't think so. IANAL.
Will it increase the size of your penis? Yes, but only if you ACT FAST and buy today! (Larger penis requires mail-in rebate)
If GUI is pronounced "gooey", that would make FUI "phooey". Sounds like a good description of these ads to me.
$ make work
make: *** No rule to make target `work'. Stop.
I find it amusing that the Slashdot crowd is, for the most part, all in favor of personal freedom and their rights - until the law targets something they don't like. Freedom cuts both ways. What has Bonzi done that is wrong? Telling me that I have an IP address?
I'm becoming convinced people here are anti-DMCA because they want to pirate, not because they see the unconstitutionality of it. Otherwise they'd see this as another erosion of 1st Amendment rights - Bonzi's.
People should be ashamed of themselves for looking for the payout from this lawsuit. It's no different from walking into a store that they don't like and robbing the cash register. If you don't feel that way, wait until someone sues you for slipping on your icy sidewalk, claiming they were mislead through the absence of snow into thinking there was traction.
What do you want to bet that behind the names on this class action suit is a search engine or multiple search engines? They've been going after traditional web advertising all year long. First one engine flamed popups, then another went after text based newsletter advertising, another slammed affiliate sites, another banned a text based advertiser resulting in a lawsuit - and now this!?
btw: bonzi was one of the few big banner andvertisements left keeping thousands upon thousands of small mom and pop sites from going out of business.
A few of the engines (one inparticular) is fastly becoming the Microsoft of Search (MoS) and flexing Microsoft like muscle actions and pettiness.
Do you have a domain registered through NetSol? Have you paid your $960 advertising fee to that company yet? You know the one, it sends out an invoice once a year or so.
When I got it, I knew it was bogus (it said my ad would list me under gas stations or something like that), but it also looked like any of the other invoices my small business dealt with. Anyone not intimately familiar with my business dealings would probably have paid it without a second thought. It's only after you carefully read the entire document that you see very small print admitting that it was a solicitation, not part of an ongoing contract... although once you fall for the scam once you'll get real invoices for years.
In that case the issue isn't whether or not they can create business directories and a kilobuck for the entry. It's that their ads are literally indistiguishable from invoices without careful study or intimate knowledge of the particulars.
It the same thing with Bozo Software. The issue isn't so much the product they offer, it's the fact that their advertising is deliberately designed to be look like legitimate system messages. They stand out on Linux boxes, but on a Windows box they can fool even experienced people who don't exercise extraordinary care.
The content of the messages also tend to be deceptive. As others have pointed out, "broadcasting your IP address" is a term of art, popup ads are incapable of checking IP stack performance, etc.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
I must have fallen asleep that day in my Economics class, because I don't understand your argument. If anything, Bonzi is helping the economy by employing those people. If they weren't working at Bonzi, they would be part of the pool of people who are competing for other jobs and contributing less money to the overall economy. Quite the opposite, Bonzi is employing people who, in turn, use their salaries to buy other things, thereby putting money back into the economic system, thus helping the economy.
If you want to argue their liability on the basis of deceptive advertising, that's one thing. But please don't suggest that they are negatively affecting the economy.
Ryosen
One man's "Troll, +1" is another man's "Insightful, +1".
Fines are a joke; the successful company will laughably pay them off -- monthly if necessary -- and keep on scaring grandma.
It's like fines for speeding. $300 is nothing to the guy with a Porche. He will gladly pay an extra $300 per week to get to/from work faster, but on the other hand, $300 could be an entire week's pay for the family man of 5 kids who will lose his job if he's late once.
Fines aren't fair, and do very little; they keep the already-honest people at bay.
Firm legal action always brings down crappy institutions eventually . . .
hi, I like pancakes -.-- -.-- --..
Joining the bandwagon, but I'll contradict a few arguements
"Your computer is broadcasting an internet IP address...blah blah blah"
OK, so first of all as most people have said, most computers don't "broadcast" per say, they just make public. Secondly, what if you have a router (or as I use, a LEAF firewall). Even if you were to misconstrue "public" as "broadcasting", my computer doesn't even have an IP address public to the internet... it's part of the LAN (the router handles all the internet stuff). In this case, the ad has even less validity.
In other words, it's a lie. For many who receieve this "global-encompassing-adspamcrap", it doesn't apply at all, but may trick the feebleminded into thinking that their computers are insecure.
Get Opera. Hit F12. Select "refuse popups"
Carpe Deez
Yes the FTC should have stepped in, and didn't. This is where the lawyers come in.
Now this corporation needs to be beaten down. This won't just "benefit" the lawyers but it will also benefit the people by hitting a corporation for wrongful practices where it matters most: MONEY.
It isn't about what gets done with the money awarded as damages (I think the best example was the SPRINT PCS settlement where users were sold a system that Sprint intended to get rid of without a clear upgrade path. The deal for the users wasn't even as good as the deal any schmuck could get by walking into radio shack!)- but the fact that this company had to pay.
This affects their bottom line, and share holders get angry when corporate officers mess with their profits. And given today's corporate climate, thats enough to get you lynched.
Even if Bonzi isn't a publically traded corporation with a board of directors and share holders, its still "in it for the money", and this hits them where it hurts.
IANAL, etc. etc. etc.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Given that it's fraud, given that there are two options for legally stoping it, one requiring action by a department of the federal government, the other requiring action by private lawyers (both in name representing citizens) - you'd really rather have the government get big and all-responsible rather than encouraging individual initiative to pick up the slack? Which creates the more free society? Is a rich lawyer more of a threat than a powerful bureaucrat?
When Republicans urge "legal reform" it amuses me because Republicans are supposed to be in favor of leaving things to private initiative and shrinking the role of government. Of course, what most of them really seem to favor is that citizens have no recourse to effective action either via government or via individual (or group) initiative against business which have defrauded or harmed them. This is basically a transfer of the government's power to the corporations this would shield.
Given the alternatives, I'm all in favor of encouraging as many greedy lawyers as we can get into the field. As in any ecology, if one species gets all the good stuff, the ecology as a whole is degraded. But if you get different, individually greedy species into balance you can get a highly-functioning system. Having the government come in to support one greedy group (businesses) against another greedy group (lawyers) just because they're greedy throws the whole system - in which greed can balance itself out for the larger good - out of whack.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
I have a floppy write-protect tab (remember those?) on that page in K&R.
Expressed another way... "More money than they have." Let's see, they just finished reading Chapter 6, next comes...
I had to use their PC which has Windows ME and IE installed. I use Linux and Mozilla at home and work, and I had forgotten what a scurge pop-ups were until I did some browsing on their machine. My GOD! Why does anyone bother to surf if they're using IE? Between banner ad image blocking and Javascript handcuffing, Mozilla is the bomb. It kind of reaffirmed why I'm a reticent, bitter bastard when it comes to popular computing.
What's sad is that the FTC's idea of legitimate business (and many MBAs' idea of legitimate business) is what most ordinary people consider deceptive and/or fraudulent behavior.
If employees acted the same way lots of businesses and advertisers behaved, they'd get fired. If spouses acted that way, they'd be divorced. If friends acted that way, they'd become enemies.
Why is it acceptable to conduct commerce in a manner that would, in any other relationship sphere, be considered dishonest behavior? It's this "If I can get away with it" morality that really turns me off, and its pervasive in politics and business.
It's not just little fly by night Internet operations that think they should be able to deceive the public. Nike is also in court defending it's right to deceive the public. The spin on this case is all over the place depending on the source. Do a google search for "nike first amendment" if you want to learn more. That will give you links to both sides arguments.
I guess I better take down my giant billboard on I-5 that is bright orange and says "DETOUR: Next exit, right on 12th St" and is landing me customers at my resteraunt (which is the only thing on 12th St (a dead end).
Would that be illegal? Posing my ad as a legit street sign? That's kinda what they're doing, right?
-DC
(NOTE: I don't own a resteraunt... this is just an analogy)
My SIG is a SG-552 Commando
Is this the goatse.cx's law firm?
Yet another nice pointless lawsuit. Another amazing waste of time and resources for the district court that will hear this case.
After reading other posts here, you have to stop and wonder who exactly is at fault here? The Bonzi Creative Ad department? Or the average end user for being stupid?
Most of us here have done some sort of user support over the years so we have been acquainted with the wide myriad of strange problems that have come up that really were nothing more than silliness on the part of the user not knowing any better. Yes, they are a waste of time and a good source for jokes when you sit around with your programming and sys adm pals in the evening. But, perhpas people should remedy the problem not with a lawsuit, but perhaps with education. Take this for example:
Having too much time on my hands this past summer, I volunteered to teach a course on Introduction to Computers at the local county library. Many of my students showed up for one-on-one tutoring, and as I helped more and more people, I realized that it's not a fear of the computer that is the problem, but just the general lack of knowledge about the entire concepts of how the computer works and what the Internet is, etc. Even the tools and materials that the Gates Foundation provides, which may be nice of them to give free technology to libraries around the United States, are completely useless. Go in and ask your librarian to let you see the 500+ page manual. While it is nicely printed, and actually decently organized, if the average end user or even library professional is asked to explain how to do something that is described in the book, they can't. People want to know, but for all the classes on the Internet that can be taken, and all the beginners information, these resource authors forget that many people in the population do not understand terms such as "Right Click" or "Shift Click", or "To Format a floppy, you need to do this..." I made the most headway by simply going home and creating both a simple web page and a printed document to simply explain such concepts as what is meant by the term icon, the term shift-click, what does the acronymn HTTP really mean, etc. After giving the document away to the library patrons free of charge, I noticed that people were more easily able to use the resources that were available, and the types of questions changed. So, perhpas if there was an easy way to educate the masses in an easy to understand manner, advertising methods such as the Bonzi popups would not be as effective. I'm sorry, but I wasn't aware that someone could sue a corporate entity because 90% of the population possesse little to no ability regarding TCP/IP networking? Perhaps the suit should be filed for the amounts of wasted time I and others experience because of the numerous popups, but I don't click them because many years ago (in the late 1980s when I was a teenager), someone explained the whole concept of TCP/IP and networking topologies to me. A simple explanation then still works today. Provide someone with an intelligent answer to their question, and they will be more productive and feel empowered and competent. And as everyone knows, when you feel you can do something, you usually do.
So, thumbs up to the Bonzi people for using something to their advantage - the general lack of knowledge amongst the population. However, thumbs down to them for wasting my bandwith.
I understand how the Internet works. Perhaps I should file a lawsuit against this legal firm for slander by saying that I am unable to know what the deal is here, because obviously they don't.
Feel free to send this letter or one like it to bonzi@lukins.com and newads@softwareonline.com. I think the more concern that is generated, the more likely it is that SOME of these could stop.
It wasn't minutes after I'd read the article about the Lukins & Annis class
:
action suit against Bonzi and their questionable and misleading hijacking of
computers by using misleading install/error/wizard pop up and banner ads that I
was treated to one of your silly "Increase your computer performance!" ads for
MemTurbo.
It makes me sad that companies like yours are relying on the "who can trick the
user best" business format and not the "who makes the best product" format. I
read your rules and regulations regarding submission of ads and I applaud your
rules for 468 and Skyscraper ads, specifically these
- Must not contain the words "Download", "Install", "Scan", or "Update"
- Cannot contain offers that imply your PC will be "Tested" or "Checked" by
the landing page itself
- Must not deceive or mislead the user into clicking. Coercion is ok,
deception is not!
Unfortunately, you do not adhere to these rules with Popunder ad submission. I
find that disgraceful and would specifically NEVER buy a product from a company
that uses SoftwareOnline.com, Inc's marketing "services" and your
reprehensible techniques. I go out of my way to recommend against doing
business with said companies to all of my customers, and will continue to do so
until this sort of ad campaign stops.
Are you aware of the class action lawsuit pending against Bonzi? Are you also
aware that your ads are almost exact duplicates (in both nature and content) of
the Bonzi ads in dispute now? The design specifications and sample ads on
http://sharewareonline.com/WebAdDesigner.htm speak volumes about your
willingness to trick customers with Popunder ads.
Please consider your techniques and dubious business model carefully...
Any sufficiently well-organized Government is indistinguishable from bullshit.
The class action Complaint was brought on behalf of all persons residing in the United States who have, while operating a computer, encountered an advertising banner like those illustrated on this website.
Whoa.. even at $500 a person.. that could effectively put bonzi buddy out of business if enough people jump on this. I personally hate bonzi buddy as I've had to spend literally hours cleaning up machines infected with their crap, often times having to reinstall windows and other software.
You made me spray Dew all over my monitor. I really need to learn to aim for the keyboard in these situations. Much cheaper hardware.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
> I'm still waiting for someone to sue CapitalOne over the dead tree
> mailouts they send that try to look like a bill or some other
> important information.
What about the mailings you get that are printed in two or three
colours, with the main text in black and then script notes in the
margins in another colour, things circled, underlined, comments
added, made to appear as if a human being has gone over it for you
and highlighted the good parts. Sure, you'd have to be nearsighted
in the extreme to mistake those printings for actual handwritten
comments, but it's still a transparent attempt at deception.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
only if we can go after Gator.com and sue them for installing there program on our computers without consent. That should be more illegal then those FUI pop-up ads.
I love the image in section 4.8 of the complaint. "Cannot delete KERNEL32. The specified file is being used by windows"
Finally somebody is doing something to those dumb bastards, I hate those people. They are the sleaziest people ever, behind the people who made gator. They must all go down. I hope they get sued so bad they never think of doing anything remotely like what they do again. Imagine if poster Ads popped up on your walls in your house every day, and you had to rip them up. I see no difference. they are invading your computer and defacing it with ads you have no desire to see. It's nice to see that something is being done, even if it won't be a final solution.
to a corporation's attempt to get rich through scamming the ignorant.
I fail to see how lawyers getting rich in their effort to punish the greedy scammer makes things "broken", it seems to me that it is a response to a broken regulatory system: it's not like Bonzi popped up yesterday, if the FTC was going to do something it should have already.
Most likely, all the FTC would do anyway is hit them with a minor fine, something Bonzi could pay by raising their rates a few 1/10s/add or pushing up 5 pops instead of 2.
Greedy lawyers are the natural predators of greedy corporations, and the Govt. should either tame the jungle equally (which it certainly doesn't do) or stay out of the way.
I have no sympathy for programmers who work on projects like spyware/scumware/adware etc. Yes, technically it's legal but it's the moral equivalent of those scams where you get a scratch-and-win card in the mail, and when you send it in to claim your "prize" they hijack your long-distance service (this is called "slamming").
I know the job market is tight, but if you work for a sleazy company like this in an "innocent" capacity (receptionists, custodians), you should start sending out resumes. If you work there in a "guilty" capacity (software dev, marketing, management), go **** yourself, because you are contributing to the degradation of our society and the corruption of the wonderful invention that is the Internet.
God, I'm not much of a believer in capitalism, but I admit the system has its good points. It's just that slime like this, who produce nothing of value and prey on the consumer, dilute those benefits to the point where they really aren't very helpful...
Freedom: "I won't!"
So I guess this means that Bonzi has jumped the shark.
My name is Carlos Montoya. You share files of my music. Prepare to die.
How do I join the lawsuit? I should get my share for having to explain to relatives that they had nothing to worry about. They were very concerned that their computer was telling them it was insecure and it was difficult to try explaining DHCP to them.
FoundNews.com - get paid to blog.,
Now if only gator were being sued as well...
13 year old white supremacists are shitty web designers.
Bonzi is pretty complicated and these ads are just the tip of the iceberg. First off Bonzi is genearting high volumes of low quality traffic then trying to resell it. Not a big deal but it's kind of shady. The major problem with Bonzi is their relationship with Whenu and SaveNow. SaveNow is commonly called scumware or parasiteware. The basic idea is SaveNow is hijacking online commissions. It works like this. There is such thing as CPA(cost per action) advertising whereby if an end user clicks on a banner then buys a product then the website that hosted that banner will receive a commission for that sale. This is all tracked with http requests to tracking servers. So basically if you own a website and your visitors are clicking on banners and buying products then you will receive a commission. However if the person making the sale has SaveNow running on their machine then that sale will be hijacked. SaveNow will interecept the http request to the tracking servers, overwrite it to suit its own needs, and in the end the commission that you should have received just went to Whenu(the makers of SaveNow).
In a nut shell, Bonzi is facilitating the distribution of these scumware applications - the end result being all websites involved in CPA advertising could be losing revenue due to stolen commissions. This is one way how Kazza, CyDoor, WhenU, and almost all other P2P file sharing networks are generating revenue.
Replace your browser with Mozilla
right click over the ad banner
select "Block Images from this server"
Done. No more ad banners.
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=94118 nuff said
http://www.archive.org/details/ThePowerOfNightmares
I HATE these guys.
Our former comptroller tried to get me fired for incompetence over one of these messages. She refused to believe that it was a banner ad, and insisted I was ignoring major security issues.
In the end she bought the software and installed it on her machine, and kept getting the error message.
She was an idiot.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
I bow to the master
LOL
That's all I had to say...
WURD!!
> You should parenthesise to remove abiguity
I'm not sure which ambiguity you mean.
them any people put to another purpose damages the economy. The economy is first a means to supply our wants.
This story has hit the major news sites (MSNBC even mentions Slashdot)...
"Security alert" advertiser sued
I was thrilled Bonzi finally got what it deserves! I hope it gets some of its own back for the hours I spent trying to get out of its never close, always downloading ad which looked just like a genuine Windows alert. I finally called my server, MSN to complain, but a tech rep said he was unaware of the problem. How could they not knew about it? And how many ads DON'T SAY "Advertisement" somewhere in the bloody box? Mine never did until later (a grudging concession?). Good for Lutkins& Annis!
I hope this company dies a very painful death. Between Bonzi Buddy, Gator, and all of their wicked, evil, advertising friends, so many people have so much computer trouble, which means I have to get off my lazy butt and fix it. It seems that 99% of the computer problems I fix are caused by spyware, a quick run through ad-aware, or (since ad-aware has not been updated in months) pest patrol, and the computer is clean.
My current record for spyware found on a customer's computer was 1350 or so, grand total. I found about 450 in ad aware and another 900 in pest patrol after ad aware finished. The computer was so laden with bad software that it had become totally unusable! I feel nothing but hate for the companies that do it.
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Okay, they're asking $500 for every Class Member, and $50 for each ad Bonzi has served up.
To be a Class Member, you have to certify in writing that you've seen one of those ads. Judging from the plethora of 'mom' stories I've seen here, I'm guessing it's hard to be an internet user and -not- have seen one of these ads at least once.
According to the August 2000 census figures, there are approximately 44 million households in the US with internet access. Making a rough guess that each of these households could have one Class Member (some could have more, some could have less), that's a potential payout of $22 BILLION even before counting how many ads they've served.
My guess: I seriously doubt that each computer-using household in the U.S. is going to receive $500. That's more than many taxpayers got from Bush's big Tax Refund. And I seriously doubt Bonzi is going to pay out $22 Billion. That's just a big, scary number being thrown at them by the law firm.
Bonzi will settle, give the lawyers suing them a huge payoff, maybe a small token check for each of the class members that signs up and agrees not to be a part of any future suit against Bonzi, and it'll be business as usual.
Good judgment comes from experience.
Experience comes from bad judgment.
bad, lawyers taking money, legal ruccus. Good, sets a good precident for banning thoose stupid fucking popups, and send a legal precident to get Gator, inc, long known for abuse of privacy.
One gator is installed on a machine, its NOT comming out with anything less than a fdisk. You may say, "only morons install gator". Which is true, but the fact is, if a moron sits down and installs gator on your machine, YOUR fucked. This happened to my boss at work, some kids visited on a class trip, he let them use his machine, and they fucking put gator on it. He was fishin around his registry for weeks.
Windows?!?!? you might ask?? if someone has a GOOD linux on the desktop solution, I mean good windows compatiblity(or a SHITLOAD of good "replacement" apps)let me hear it. Otherwise don't even start with the "ewww, windows".
ps its only a matter of time before gator starts having clients send passwords back to a central hub, acting as a backdoor, and having your computer run distributed projects for them, without compensation. For fucks sake, they already claim credit as an assiociate for everything you buy online!
Myself and dozens of other people have been trying to aim them at the scam artists at Evidence Eliminator for quite some time, and never get a budge out of them. I can understand why they don't listen to me -- I'm a Yank. But many UK citizens have complained to them too, and the EE guys still continue to sell their spamware spyware with impunity via deceptive ads that say you have material on your computer that will send you to jail where you can be some gorilla's woman and their software is the only thing that will save you.
Send mail here if you want to reach me.