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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.
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*
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
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.
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...
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?
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.
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" ???
www.goat.. ah screw it.
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)
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.
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();
"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:)
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
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.
Fellow /.ers, this item has given us the opportunity to /. a lawyer and they're STILL UP!.
Must try harder!
Actualy, I had a 10 year old visitor checking his e-mail try to close the "dialog box". The young really fall for this one as they are just used to closing all pop-up dialog boxes in windows without reading them just to keep windows running a little longer before it crashes. I got to inform him of his mistake on my machine.
The truth shall set you free!
Luckily, Ad-Aware came to the rescue and removed 99 spyware/adware files. Suddenly everything was much nicer...
Sorry, but my karma just ran over your dogma.
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.
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.
yep, and theyre taking advantage of this too. They are making banners that look like popup windows hosting images which look like fake windows error messages. whew. People see the fake error message, and assume its in a 'genuine' popup window, so they try close the 'outer' window, which is in fact a clickable image... bah. I hope they all burn for that crap.
I.O.U One Sig.
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?
You mis-read it, the $500 goes to the lawyers and you get the $5.00.
To get your $5.00 send, via certified mail, in your name, address and a check for $4.98 to cover shipping and handleing fees to the address given on thier web site.
Make a FAQ, I'd like to see the answer you give them.
This isn't an internet law. Fraud is a illegal, internet or no.
The attacking lawyers provide some samples of the ads they say are misleading.
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.
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
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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
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.
This has nothing to do with the topic at hand.
It would be more akin to you walking into a store and finding the music they're playing over the PA system to be either offensive, loud, or just annoying. Sucks to be you. Just leave.
If, however, someone dressed as a store rep walked up to you and said, "I'm sorry, sir, but your cell phone is emitting too much radiation. You really need to purchase this antenna shield," that would be something else entirely.
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
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.
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.
> 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.
I know you don't want to hear this, but your ad is the equivalent of making a 3-foot orange steel rectange, painting a black border on it, putting the word "Detour" with and arrow, and placing that sign on the road 50 ft. in front of the entrance to your store.
Does the cancel button function? It doesn't appear to. Does the fake dialog do what it said it would? Nope. Are you selling something? Yes.
This all comes under misrepresentation, and, AFAIK, that's not legal, especially if you're trying to hawk your goods.
Just my 2 cents. I really don't care too much about these popups, or yours... they benefit my business (I get paid to remove all this spyware...)
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
I love the image in section 4.8 of the complaint. "Cannot delete KERNEL32. The specified file is being used by windows"
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!"
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.
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
What, specifically, is this legal requirement. Can you provide a citation. We discussed this issue pretty thoroughly in class, and concluded that such labeling could easily be an infringement of free speech. (damn that 1st A ;)
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
HEAD tags are optional according to the standards.
Yeah, and the mafia is a legitimate business that employs thousands. Have you signed up for Prepaid Illegal Services?
The Uncoveror: It's the real news.
For a little while, perhaps. If they have real skills, however, ultimately they will produce goods and services that have value to others, for whom other people will give them money, with which they can purchase goods and services that they want from others. Just because money is moving around doesn't mean that value is being created. When people are "employed" in trades that produce no value, there's something called opportunity cost. The whole economy would get more for its buck if they were just given the same money to stay at home and not do *anything,* and far more for its buck if they are producing something that is actively valued by others,
This story has hit the major news sites (MSNBC even mentions Slashdot)...
"Security alert" advertiser sued
I know that it clarifies it. But it does not serve to promote free speech. If people know that something is an ad, they won't look at it. If spam or banners, etc. are uniformly labeled as ads, they are likely to be filtered extremely heavily and this prevents people from speaking effectively or having an audience... due to government regulation mandating the labeling.
A hard sell is not fraud. Sales puffery is not fraud.
Believe me -- I like free speech, and I hate ads, but I really don't see a way to force useful labeling of ads in such a way that, say, I might not have to see them.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
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.
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.