Judge OKs Competitive Pop-Up Ads

Mirkon writes "A while back, U-Haul filed suit against adware giant WhenU for displaying competing advertisements to users as they browsed U-Haul's site. Friday, District Judge Gerald Bruce Lee's ruling dismissed U-Haul's suit, saying '...the fact is that the computer user consented to this detour when the user downloaded WhenU's computer software from the Internet,' and 'Alas, we computer users must endure pop-up advertising along with her ugly brother, unsolicited bulk e-mail, "spam," as a burden of using the Internet.' While the ruling was issued in the context of unfair competitive marketing, it's speculated that this will have broad implications in the fight against adware - and they aren't kind to the user. WhenU chief executive Avi Naider is unfortunately quoted as saying 'This is a victory for consumer choice -- it ultimately protects consumers' right to control what they see on their computer screens.'"

Comments

Oldthink vs. NewSpeak

[xmark]

WhenU chief executive Avi Naider is unfortunately quoted as saying "This is a victory for consumer choice..."

Naider is practicing what George Orwell called NewSpeak in the novel 1984. NewSpeak is the deconstruction of language so that it loses all its meaning even as it gains a pseudo-patriotic emotional tone. Disagree with NewSpeak and eventually you become a Thought Criminal (DMCA anyone?). Tell me how Naider's asinine statement is any different from some of Orwell's classics:

War is Peace

Freedom is Slavery

Ignorance is Strength

Check out this site for a NewSpeak dictionary and other interesting stuff. In a world filled with PR bullshit from Microsoft, RIAA, SCO, and [fill in favorite political party here], there are damned few "victories for consumer choice," and ignorance is not strength, it's dire peril.

Troll?

[John Seminal]

You are an idiot. It is true. Look at Real Player. By the time you figure out what data they collect and send, it is too late to do anything. And they purposfully give you a two pages with unchecked boxes about collecting data, but if you go three pages down you see boxes checked about them monitoring you and collecting data. Tell me they did not do that on purpose. You are an asshole for modding it down. I do not care. Plus, PC's are supposed to be about ease of use. What is easy about searching for a control panel on some software which was burried so you can disable data collection.

Re:This is good

[ichimunki]

Huh? I, for one, love adware/spyware/MS Outlook-- best arguments for Free Software ever made.