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.

Comments

Good idea

[quintessent]

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.

Re:Good idea

[global_diffusion]

Yep. Just the other day I watched a sysadmin talk down a user who was freaking out over his computer not being safe for the internet. It was quite sad.

Re:Good idea

[coryboehne]

I'm actually guilty of clicking on one of these... Not because the fooled me though, I just have a habit of clicking banner ads to see what kind of crap is being sold by these people.

Now, I hate banner ads (nearly) as much as the next guy.. 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 (IANAL although I do play one on TV) and even if it does it really shouldn't.

Just because you find something annoying doesn't mean it should be against the law, I mean if you're in a restaruant and you are going to pay $100+ for the meal and someone's baby is crying, or they are talking to loud, or even better their baby is screaming because they're talking into a cell phone instead of paying attention to their kid and at that they are talking into the phone at an unreasonable volume level. Now, should this be illegal? The short answer is no.

Compare this to Dimtri and the DMCA fiasco, all he really did was innovate and try to do something different and make a buck in the process, and for what end result? To get sued for their intended innovation in business? Although I admit there are a million differences I wanted to use a well known case for comparison, so please spare the flames about adobe e-book vs misleading (looking) ads, the point is that it was innovation that lead both people on their path.

Anyway, it might be best to think about this before jumping on the "I hate everything that has anything to do with advertising on the internet" bandwagon and attacking this person for what really only amounts to innovation gone askew.

Re:Good idea

[quintessent]

Just because you find something annoying doesn't mean it should be against the law.

Let's argue that one another day. But these ads are not just annoying, they're deceptive. That's a serious issue.

Re:Good idea

[Ponty]

You mean my computer isn't broadcasting an IP address? That really scared me. I went out and bought $3000 worth of networking hardware to create a DMZ with border gateways and traffic shapers. Every single packet has to be personally approved by me to get out of my house. Ain't no hacker gonna hack my computer!

Re:Good idea

[operagost]

What's sad is the FTC should have stepped in here. That's what Americans are paying taxes for, and they simply don't do anything. This lawsuit will only benefit a few already wealthy lawyers.

That being said, these banners are more than misleading, they're downright deceptive. See here. Look at banner one: "Your computer is broadcasting an Internet IP [sic] address." No, broadcasting is an actual technical term for sending data to an entire subnet or network and is not part of routine Internet activity. Let's not even try to figure out how your computer could possibly communicate without an IP address. Banner three: "Your internet connection is not optimized." Since an animated GIF is incapable of analyzing my IP stack's configuration, I'd have to say this is incorrect information.

Only banner two is legit, because it says your current connection MAY be capable of faster speeds.

Re:Good idea

[jonadab]

> Only banner two is legit, because it says your current connection
> MAY be capable of faster speeds.

These banners aren't fraudulent just because of what they say --
although what they say is certainly deceptive as well. My most
serious objection to them is that they are deliberately designed
to look like something much more important than advertising. If
a company started putting up roadside advertisements made to look
like road construction signs, little carts with blinking arrows
made of individual lights (such as the DOT uses), and so on, in
order to convince drivers that their driveway was the next exit,
or that it was imperative to get off at their exit as part of a
detour due to road construction, would we allow that? (Okay,
Microsoft is not a government agency, but the importance of
operating systems error messages on a computer is very similar
to the importance of highway department messages on a highway.)

That the messages in these fake dialogs are deceptive is just
the icing on the cake.

Misleading?

[DoctorPhish]

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...

Re:Misleading?

[foo12]

I always love it when those ads pop-up on my Mac... you know, it wouldn't be terribly hard to sniff server-side for OS and deliver a customized version....

Ah shit, I've said too much.

About time

[NexusTw1n]

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.

Gotta love the BonziBuddy

[codexus]

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?

Best PopUp I've seen

[Anacrusis]

It said I was broadcasting the IP address 243.65.42.656

It's almost as though they think we're retarded...

Re:hijacked?

[Vengie]

plz see definition #2 below...
www.m-w.com
Main Entry: hijack
Pronunciation: 'hI-"jak
Function: transitive verb
Etymology: origin unknown
Date: 1923
1 a : to steal by stopping a vehicle on the
highway b : to commandeer (a flying airplane)
especially by coercing the pilot at gunpoint
c : to stop and steal from (a vehicle in
transit) d : KIDNAP
2 a : to steal or rob as if by hijacking b : to
subject to extortion or swindling
- hijack noun
- hijacker noun
So yeah...if you wanna get technical, it IS "to subject to extortion or swindling"....and thus hijacking.

Its honestly about time.

[Vengie]

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!"

You have an urgent message waiting!

[palindromic]

www.goat.. ah screw it.

What the fsck?

[abbamouse]

"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.

Re:Woot!

[hbackert]

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.

You want to show them you logged them on your own firewall (probably self installed, running a hard-core version of Linux like Slackware or something similar non-intuitive), and then you fell for their stupid trick of Windows-lookalike silly error messages?

Like this:

Your honour, I tracked down their IP address using tools like nslookup and dig, entered it into my self-installed firewall running Linux using iptables, marking those packets and sending them to metalog (which if I may add, beats sysklogd hands down), so I have a proof that I fell for their ad. Here is my printout of my Gnome desktop (made with xwd and xwud and gimp just because I can). They deceived me! See!

Broadcasting an IP Address

[Ratbert42]

'Your computer is broadcasting an internet IP Address...'

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.

I wish them luck on my system

[wowbagger]

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."

Re:Who wins?

[walt-sjc]

This is EXACTLY about lawyers getting rich. Our broken legal system drives this stuff. That said, I think it's Very clear that this is a case of deceptive advertising. However, a class action suit is not the answer. The FTC should be the agency that goes in and fines them a couple million bucks, and forbids them from doing that crap in the future.

When you look at deceptive behavior on the net though, there are other bigger fish to fry. Interstitials for example. Isn't it deceptive when you click on a link for a news article and you get an ad instead? What about all the ads for something "free" and you find out that you need a subscription or the product is anything but free? How about endless pop-up hell (not a problem for me personally, I use Galeon)? What about all the SPAM advertising things that are obviously not true, or claiming that they are from someone else?

IMHO, the FTC hasn't done nearly enough dealing with fraud on the internet. It's not that they don't know about it or anything...

Connection Not Optimized

[Old Wolf]

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.

Re:Who wins?

[macdaddy357]

The FTC will not do anything, because they have no teeth. I tried to sic them on an online pyramid scheme called nexgen 3000 that conned my great uncle, but since I did not lose money, my complaint meant nothing. With Republicans in Congress and the White House, the FTC will never be given teeth, as it could then bite their big business cronies. Lawsuits are the only recourse we have. If "tort reform" goes through, we will lose our only recourse.