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D-Squared Can Resume Pop-Ups, For Now

Posted by timothy on from the got-firebird dept.

linuxwrangler writes "According to this SF Gate article, U.S. District Judge Andre Davis said there was insufficient evidence for him to grant a preliminary injunction preventing D-Squared from using Microsoft's messenger service to send pop-up ads to Windows users. D-Squared used the Windows messenger service to pop-up ads as often as every 10 minutes. The ads promoted its product -- software to stop 'these unwanted and illegal pop-up messages forever with the click of a button' - a practice the FTC called 'high-tech extortion.'"

5 of 67 comments (clear)

  1. Damned If You Do... by MBCook · · Score: 5, Insightful
    software to stop 'these unwanted and illegal pop-up messages forever with the click of a button'

    OK. Let's all read this. Now this is either true or untrue. Let's take a look.

    Option 1: the statement is true. That means that pop-ups are illegal, and hence the company is knowingly and willfuly violating the law. If this is the situation, they are in trouble.

    Option 2: the statement is false. That means that pop-ups are NOT illegal. Hence the company is lying to extort money through practicing false advertising (along with probably being in violation of some of those new anti-spam laws).

    Seems to me they have managed to write themselves into a corner. Now if we add to that some of the other charges that we might be able to make stick, they're in deeeeeeeeeeeeep trouble. Let's see what else we can come up with, shall we?

    • Harassment - Isn't sending the same ad to someone and interupting what they are doing every 10 minutes harassment?
    • Junk Fax - I suppose you could argue this one if spam e-mail counts
    • Spam Laws - Mentioned above, this is spamming isn't it?
    • Anti-hacker laws - Aren't there laws that make it illegal to use someone else's computer without their permission? Well surly forcing a computer to display something against the user's will would count.
    • Violating TOS - Surly what these guys are doing is in violation of the terms of service of their ISP. Sue the ISP to get them shut off, and they'll be droped like a brick. Contine ad-infinitum, or the spammers get a clue, which ever comes first (take a guess).

    Of course, spamming the spammer (and their lawyer) with these pop-up messages might finally do it. Am I the only one who thinks that someone who's stupid enough to do this in the first place probably isn't using their own software?

    --
    Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
    1. Re:Damned If You Do... by 0x0d0a · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The judge didn't say that they were in the right.

      He just said that he didn't have enough evidence to issue a preliminary injunction.

      The only time these should be issued is if there is immediate, severe, and irrevocable harm being caused by an action, and the judge feels that the harm-causer is unlikely to win their court case.

      I'd say this is pretty reasonable. The idea is to keep law from becoming someone's subjective opinion -- the court is where the real arguments will be heard. Preliminary injunctions are emergency actions, not to be taken in every case.

      --
      May we never see th
  2. I have an idea by El · · Score: 4, Funny

    Let's all send a large box of manure to D-Squared headquarters, with a note inside saying "For only $29.95, you can stop these illegal and unwanted mailings forever!" Or better yet, disable the damn message service! Or even better still -- run Linux.

    --

    "Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney

  3. Stop that popup in 10 easy steps clicks for free. by bryanp · · Score: 5, Informative

    1. Start
    2. Settings
    3. Control Panel.
    4. Administrative Tools.
    5. Services.
    6. Messenger
    7. Change Startup Type to "Manual"
    8. Stop.
    9. Apply.
    10. OK.

    --
    "An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it." Col. Jeff Cooper
  4. How long before viruses are corporate? by digitalvengeance · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Ok, let's analyze this on a technical level.

    D-Squared is basically sending a series of packets to a specific port on the user's machine that is causing code to be ran, right?
    What about the latest list of RPC virii? Don't they do exactly the same thing? Sure, the code that D-Squared is causing to be executed was written by MS and the code that the virii run are written by their respective authors - but the two are essentially the same.

    How long before the courts allow virus authors to write antivirii and advertise them in the virus itself?

    --
    How many roads must a man walk down? 42.