Nationwide Class Action Filed Against DoubleClick

Stanley Ference writes "A nationwide class action lawsuit has been commenced in the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, against DoubleClick Inc. DoubleClick is a leading provider of products and services used by direct marketers, web publishers and advertisers to plan, execute and analyze marketing programs. In 2002, Doubleclick served more than 630 billion ads on the Internet for thousands of customers." If you've ever been tricked by one of those ads telling you that your "connection is not optimized" or that you have "1 new message waiting," you could be part of the class. Read on for details.

Stanley Ference continues: "The class action complaint alleges that DoubleClick deceptively and fraudulently commandeered millions of Internet users to the commercial websites of DoubleClick's customers through dissemination of tens-of-millions of fraudulent Internet advertising banners that impersonated computer system messages. The Complaint states that through use of such Fake User Interface ("FUI") dialogs that fraudulently represented themselves as computer system error messages, DoubleClick tricked millions of Internet users into interrupting the work they were performing to respond to the fraudulent system message, only to unexpectedly find both computer and computer user thus hijacked to commercial websites of DoubleClick's customers.

Additional information about this lawsuit, including an illustration of the advertising banners that are the subject of this lawsuit, may be found at ferencelaw.com/doubleclick."

Here's a link to the press release (PDF) announcing the filing of this lawsuit.

Comments

Re:Damn - fooled again

[Anonymous Coward]

but I think it should be the FTC dealing with it not class action lawsuits

Hold on! The FTC is a federal agency, and the actions of this agency can be controlled by the executive, and even members of Congress who weigh in on particular matters. Consider, for example, how the DOJ let Microsoft off the hook, even though it had won critical fact-findings at the district court.

Regardless of your personal political view, do you really want politicized agencies having exclusive enforcements?

There's a class of lawsuits known as "private attorney general" actions, where ordinary citizens can sue to enforce laws and rules (if these laws allow such actions). This is explicit recognition by the legislature that their agencies charged with enforcing the laws often don't get their priorities right, and that sometimes, justice can come from common citizens.

A similar legislative goal is behind class action suits, but there are other goals, such as efficiency and conservation of scarce judicial resources.

Could you follow up with more specific reasons why you think only a federal agency should have the power to police advertising? Please provide information about how "zealous" the FTC has been under various administrations about pursuing all law-breakers, and not just those without the common sense to make hefty political donations and retain Washington lobbyists (like Microsoft).

Re:Damn - fooled again

[arkanes]

I think we SHOULD go after beer advertizers when babes don't flock to me. Untruthful advertising is especially bad - this is advertising that is intentionally attempting to decieve people by placing an add that mimics a legitimate warning. It'd be like advertising medicine by sending you mail that look like it was from a health clinic claiming you had a disease.

In what way would it harm our nation and economy if products had to advertise based soley on legitimate, provable objective benefits of thier products? No paid actors giving "testimonials", no hints that using it will get you laid - just bare, provable facts. We'd all be better off.

Full disclosure time - do you work for an advertising company?

Re:Damn - fooled again

[squiggleslash]

I think deceptive advertisers should be punished. Frivilous lawsuits have nothing to do with this.

If you deliberately deceive, you should suffer the consequences. As it is, the system is set up to reward the vast majority of those who lie and mislead, harrass and annoy in the name of commercialism. Screw 'em.