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WhenU.com Enjoined From Competing Pop-Ups
Frisky070802 writes "The NY Times reports that a preliminary injunction has been issued against WhenU.com, a company that distributes software that performs certain tasks for users but also intercepts their website visits so that, for instance, a visitor to Expedia would see a pop-up ad for Orbitz. Now if only we could get rid of all the rest of the pop-up ads."
My favorite pop-up blocker is google's toolbar. ,
If I'm going to have some stupid something sitting my windows toolbar section, it might as well do some useful stuff--search google, block pop-ups, and give me pagerank.
I love free software.
Davak
The linux hacker
When U dot com, U get mozilla and block pop ups.
Star light
star bright
first star I see tonight
I wish I may
I wish I might
see all spammers and pop-up software writers be sent directly to jail, do not pass go, do not collect 200 dollars.
I have been pwned because my
We are scheduled to get rid of pop-up ads right after we deal with SPAM once and for all.
Don't hold your breath, please.
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
Yes, the old adage of "click here, end up there" scenario - unfortunately, the only people that will really benefit from all this fighting back and forth are the lawyers. Who really gives a damn about the users anyways?
Well, based on reading the article, WhenU.com offers software that helps people fill out address forms and check weather forecast, while providing you with the aforementioned ads from competitors of the website your visiting. (IMO, neither of these example tasks seems like something that would require a separate program to do, let alone one that hijacks your browser with popups.)
If I'm clear about what my software does, and this site was, then I ought to be free to distribute it and block popups or anything else I want. If this behavior is illegal, then popup blocking software ought to be illegal, too.
Company Barred From Use of Some Pop-up Ads
By BOB TEDESCHI
Published: January 5, 2004
JUST when some federal courts seemed unwilling to find fault with a controversial type of pop-up Web advertising, a federal judge in New York has called at least a temporary timeout on one version of the advertisements.
Late last month the judge, Deborah A. Batts of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, issued a preliminary injunction that bars the advertising software company WhenU.com from displaying pop-ups and other types of online advertisements for VisionDirect.com when visitors go to 1-800 Contacts.com, a competing Web site.
The decision is the latest twist in a battle between WhenU and more than a dozen companies that object to its advertising techniques. Many more companies are closely watching the fight to determine whether they, too, should sue WhenU and its closest competitor, the Claria Corporation, or simply sign up as advertisers.
Opponents of WhenU's and Claria's advertising approach compare it to hijacking customers after they have entered a store. The techniques differ from the conventional pop-up advertisements, as when the travel company Orbitz.com pays publishers to have its ads pop up on readers' screens.
With WhenU's and Claria's services, for example, Orbitz would pay to have its ads pop up with Web surfers visiting the competing site Expedia.com - as in fact happened last week when visitors arrived at Expedia.com.
In such a case, Orbitz has an opportunity to lure a prospective Expedia customer from Expedia's own site. For this to work, WhenU and Claria must have the Web surfer's complicity. Each company has distributed its software to more than 30 million Internet users. The free software helps users accomplish various tasks online, whether it be filling out address forms or checking weather forecasts.
In exchange for these free services, users agree to let a piece of software track their activity as they surf the Web. (In some cases, this software is bundled not with software from WhenU or Claria, but with free software from other companies, like the file-sharing service providers Kazaa and BearShare.) It it this tracking software that enables WhenU or Claria to display a competitors' ads when users visit various sites.
Online companies have fought WhenU and Claria in the courts for the last three years, usually claiming that their pop-up ads violate federal copyright and trademark laws by disrupting the display of the plaintiffs' Web sites and by unjustly using their trademark to sell advertising, among other complaints.
But WhenU registered several legal victories in the second half of 2003, beginning with a decision in July by a federal district court in Virginia. In that case, the court rejected the argument of U-Haul that WhenU's ads on behalf of its competitors infringed U-Haul's copyrights and trademarks.
In October, Internet retailers Overstock.com and TigerDirect.com dropped suits against WhenU. In November, Federal District Court Judge Nancy G. Edmunds, in Detroit, denied Wells Fargo's request for a preliminary injunction in its suit against WhenU. Judge Edmunds ruled that Wells Fargo was not likely to prevail on its claims of copyright and trademark infringement.
The judge said that WhenU did not use Wells Fargo's trademark, per se, in its advertising, since the pop-ups themselves did not display those trademarks. No trial date has yet been set for the case.
Judge Batts, in New York, made a different judgment in issuing her preliminary injunction against WhenU. She noted that WhenU places the 1-800 Contacts.com Web address in an internal database that is used to trigger the display of competitors' ads. That, she wrote, violates the Lanham Act's trademark protections, because WhenU has used the trademark of 1-800 Contacts in a way that is likely to cause consumer confusion. Specifically, Judge Batts wrote, consumers could be confused about the connection between
For the unfortunate friends and family that run Windows, I always install adaware and do a scan of their computer every once in a while.
http://www.lavasoftusa.com/
It seems to take care of the adware kazaa installs, and most others.
Reccomended for every windows user, should be "mandatory" like antivirus software.
Funny how all through the article not one mention is made of the weaknesses of having IE and Windows (which is the only setup the whenu.com client affects) as a monoculture. I can't count the number of times people on my ISPs board have claimed the ISP must be doing something wrong cos going to one site brings up another, or cos going to one site brings up ads for another.
Weak software brings about this crap. Start at the base.
I use Mozilla, and haven't seen a pop-up in a very long time. In fact, I haven't seen any Flash (which I hate) either.
-cp-
Alaska Bugs Sweat Gold Nuggets
The internet seems to become more worthless every day, as more and more of it is hijacked by spammers and other commercialization.
How can we take it back? If we can't, how can we replace it with something more resistant to these electronic malignancies?
I want instant communication with friends and colleagues all over the planet, but I don't want UCE. I want instant access to the world's knowledge on all topics, from crucial news to movie trivia, but I want it without viruses, interstitial ads, popups, spyware, and all that other crap.
By using Linux with some other specialized software, I have erected a defensive perimeter around my internet existence, so the tidal wave of garbage largely passes me by. But the walls need maintenance, and there always seems to be some new leak that needs plugging.
It's regrettable that we need to take such drastic measures, but what really worries me is that the need is increasing with time. Can you imagine the situation where 99% of your email is spam? Is there an alternative to giving up email entirely at that point?
How about having nothing extra in your toolbar and just use Mozilla instead? :)
http://mozilla.org/
I doubt WhenU held a gun to people's head forcing them to install the WhenU client.
All kidding aside though and to be serious, what right does a court have to block how software the user installed interacts with said user? If the court rules against WhenU in this case, what stops a multitude of lawsuits from being filed because Company X doesn't like how Company Y's software interacts on Average Joe's home computer? I swear, the US is getting WAAY too litigation happy, especially on such tech issues.
Now while I can certainly understand the affected companies concerns (I work for one of the plaintifs), I simply think the courts have no moral right, let alone legal grounds, to step into this sort of situation.
To say it plainly, if it's MY computer, I'll install what I choose, and if I'm not happy, I know exactly where the uninstall is located. I think the consumer should be able to decide for themselves what software to install and how it interacts with the rest of my system - I don't need mommy & daddy to decide for me......
Argh... I could go on for a while here.......
According to Webster, "Enjoined" is how you say forbidden / prohibited when you want to sound like a lawyer.
You can hide the Google toolbar so it doesn't take up any real estate. And if it is resource (memory, CPU) usage you're worried about, well XUL and other bits of Netscape add a lot more resource usage than the Google toolbar does to IE.
Note: I have nothing against Mozilla, it is a fine browser, but the 'nothng extra' statement regarding the google toolbar was kind of silly.
What exactly are these pop up things you are talking about? I have never seen a pop up before! Would someone please explain what a pop up is please? And what is this Internet Explorer program? Do people really use this program? I'm totally amazed! I'll have to try it out to see exactly what these "pop up" things are...
It seems to me that this is more a victory for the pop-up companies. After all, if this company manages to make it less profitable for companies to USE popup ads, then eventually there will be fewer of them. I mean, it's generally pretty sleezy tactics, but that seems to be the general trend in advertising these days anyway.
I'm just glad safari and mozilla block popups for me...
Use Mozilla. Tell your friends.
Mike Hoye
"I doubt WhenU held a gun to people's head forcing them to install the WhenU client."
No, but I have suspected them of using an IE exploit to install their client without the user's knowledge or consent. I can't prove it, of course, and I'd imagine it would be a big stink if it were true (e.g., felony computer crime for each violation, one would think.)
They don't literally force anyone to install their software, but they certainly do it clandestinely and without a clear affirmative decision made by the user. It doesn't fall in the same category as literally holding a gun to the user's head, but that doesn't make it ok.
"To say it plainly, if it's MY computer, I'll install what I choose, and if I'm not happy, I know exactly where the uninstall is located."
This kind of spyware sneaks in. And without a certain amount of knowledge, such as knowing the registry inside and out, they are very hard to remove. I don't need help with this stuff either, but I know a thing or two about computers. That does not diminish my concern for a victim who cannot say that.
So instead of holding a gun to your head and making you talk, they sneak into your apartment while you're at work and bug the place. Does that make you feel better?
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
The injunction against the company only prevents them from using a particular pop-up ad that is triggered when a user visits the webste of one of their customers. So I think the main issue is it ethical to draw people away from your competitor by taking advantage of the fact that you have some software installed which "knows" when you visit your competitors' site?
One of the things that annoy me the most about pop-up ads, is that they have destroyed an otherwise fine tool. I'll a couple of home-pages and sometimes it would be really nice to be able to do a pop-up. Like for telling people that, if they have to keep on getting the news letter they will have to blah blah, blah... or warning them that there's only two days left if they want to join the competition.
But people are so negative about pop-ups that if they aren't using a blocker (I'm using Firebird), they certainly aren't reading what's in the pop-up before they close it.
Yes, most pop-op blockers have a white-list function, but most users are totally clueless on how to use it and will not white list anything. Even if you give them a clue, they will revert to cluelessness in a few minutes. I'm not just guessing here. I installed Mozilla on every workstation here (15 WS's), changed the default browser to mozilla and demoed it, include the white-list function (our intranet uses pop-ups). So they all had the intranet white-listed "out of the box" and they all know that if there's a small blue question mark is means that there's a pop-up that they might be missing. How often do you think that they come to the me, complaining about home pages that doesn't work "in that stupid mozilla browser..." ?
The only solution that I can see is a global/central white list function. If it was possible to register my site as a "good practice pop-up site" at the various pop-up blocker suppliers, that would could us the pop-up back as a useful tool.
I imagine the rules for getting on the white list should be something like this:
1. Only display a pop-up once to each visitor. Use a cookie or something to make sure that you don't do it again.
2. No ads in the pop-up. The pop-up must be related to the site visited.
3. Make it clear if clicking a link will result in a pop-up (we need a common icon/symbol for this).
4. For the extra strict: Only pop-up to registered users who have signed up for the pop-ups. Like phpBB2's "news personal mail" pop-up box.
I'm unsure if it could be automated, either by analyzing the site with a robot, or through analyzing the manual white-listing done by the users of your blocker software. Otherwise it would have to be a manual process... (which means that it probably would become a paid for extra service).
TC - My Photos..
1) WhenU does not install because a user asked it to. It is spyware.
2) slightly off topic, but their popups and spyware sends are not blocked by the google toolbar. I saw a computer that had google toolbar, with 8 popups blocked (yuppie!) but outside popups were not. The owner had like software popups outside of IE popping up every 10 seconds so much he installed googles toolbar just because of that. Imagine how much business google gets because of the spyware business, as googletoolbar is the most well known popup blocker (even if it doesn't remove those popups the user came to get removed) ?
Cover your eyes and click this link!
Well Firebird is the one for me. Absolutely fantastic browser - looks great, fast, no popups, can use Mozilla's plugins. It's made converts of lots of my friends and colleagues too! Also use Thunderbird for mail now, and it rocks!
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
WhenU pales in comparison to CoolWebSearch. If yo udon't know what that is, it's a Trojan that drops files on your computer that change your IE settings, slow down/crash IE/your system, and can download and execute arbitrary unsigned code, and one version (CWS.ehhtp) tracks everything you do on the Web that begins with WWW, as it changes the prefix "WWW" to "http://ehttp.cc/?". Over 23 variants of it have been documented in _five months_.
WhenU is at least installed through legal means. CWS installs through holes in the MS Java Machine.
If the courts wish to create injunctions against spyware/adware, why don't they just go against these first?
(For more information on CWS, if you're interested, check out Merijn's section on it. His CWShredder tool is quite nice.)
Striking fear in the authors of godawful fanfiction, I am here, appearing in darkness, Tuxedo Jack!
Here's an idea, most of these tools do their job by attaching themselves to the IE process, something IE allows. Microsoft should make it blatantly obvious which programs have attached itself to IE, and make them easily removable.
Heh, but who is Microsoft to listen to a slashdotter. However, it's probably possible to make an extension that does the above, just like the extension that stops the "%01" URL-hiding bug.
AFAIK, IE just looks in a registry key to see which CLSIDs of programs want to attach to it, and then load these programs when an IE instance is running.
What time is it/will be over there? Check with my iPhone app!
In contract law there are certain things that you cannot sign away. For instance, you cannot sell yourself into slavery.
It is controversial whether EULAs even constitute a legal contract.
Why should companies get away writing software that if a script kiddy did he would be put in prison, or at least get a criminal trial?
Once software starts hijacking your computer then it is entering the realm of viruses. Among other things this definition should include being unable to uninstall the software without re-installing windows. Another is repeatedly resetting your password to goatse or other pr0n sites.
Promote Sensitivity on Slashdot, make me your friend.
When trying to raise money to help pay for my site, I tried using pop-up ads... but quickly realized that I felt less guilty from purse-snatching from little old ladies.
since opera has a block pop-up facility
The problem with this kind of popups is that they're not opened by a little JavaScript in the HTML source, but by a tiny program running in the background. AFAIK, that is.
So I'd think the popup blocking in WinXPSP2 (for example) will not be able to block this kind of popups. And well, if it will work, the dorks at Gator can just alter the program so that some weird window opens up with a HTML component in it, instead of a real browser window.
So yeah, this kind of software might just keep the popups alive... What can one do against this?
Excerpt from our Policy regarding Pop Up ads.
Chatmag.com DOES NOT USE POP UP ADS!
If a user of Chatmag is viewing a pop up ad, it IS NOT being served by Chatmag.com but by one of several third party advertising servers. These third party advertising servers place a program on a users system, and then while browsing, serve ads from their servers.
If you have installed a file sharing program or "wallet", from such companies as: Gator, (Note: Gator has changed their name to Claria) Kazaa, WhenU, BearShare, or AudioGalaxy, you may have downloaded an ad server as part of their software. These programs are authorized by you, when you read the agreement before you installed their software (you did read it, didn't you?). We realize most people do not read their agreement, and inadvertently download ad server software, which is now happily serving you pop up advertisements when you visit a Chatmag.com page.
We strongly advise getting and running Ad Aware, and dump all ad servers, unless you like pop up advertisements, and other web sites losing revenue by these programs.
Please note that Chatmag.com loses revenue by the use of any third party ad serving software, and we highly resent others being paid for our hard work and dedication to provide only relevant advertising, or none at all, depending upon the specific topic page.
Pete Carr Owner Chatmag.com
arstechnica report that XP service pack 2 adds a pop-up blocker to IE
yeah i pretty much have given up email. i dont email friends/family anymore, i just call them using my trusty cell phone and free long distance. the only reason i have an email account is to sign up for stuff on the internet. and i do have three accounts for that, only one do i use after i verify that the company i gave my email too isnt spamming me. other than that i stay away from email. althoguh i do use IM a lot.
023AD01("Child", "Evil");
The internet seems to become more useful every day, as more and more commercial interests make their wares available to me, provide me with web interfaces to common tasks like checking balances and reporting problems (even SBC has email trouble reporting now.)
How can we take it back? WTF are you talking about, it's ours already. We vote with our dollars. People obviously want to be spammed, because they're buying things from spammers. Remember, the majority rules.
I want instant communications with friends and colleagues all over the planet, and I have it. I have several instant messengers including a WASTE network. Sure, all the IMs show me ads. I consider that fair payment for using their services. It's not like they're popups.
By using Linux without any specialized software, and keeping the XP machines in the house up to date, I have prevent myself from being backdoored. I occasionally run updates on my Linux system so I don't get rooted there, either. And the walls never seem to need any maintenance as long as I keep up to date. Then again, I use NAT, I drop source routed frames, and I don't have any software bound to my insecure/WAN interface except for that which needs to be there; Anything which I can't bind to specific addresses has been walled. (I used to block by default but this has been easier.)
I don't see how these are drastic measures at all. You wouldn't have a door without a lock, and you shouldn't have a network without a firewall.
BTW I get a shitload of spam. Mozilla Thunderbird is good enough to roundfile it for me. If I get to the point where 99% of it is spam, I guess I'll have to use spamassassin or something. More than 50% of my snailmail is spam, and that's much worse than email spam, because every time it gets recycled (most of it is newsprint by volume) it takes its tool on the environment. Even trees grown for paper deplete the soil, and the process of making them into paper is fairly dirty.
I got into internet use in 1990 or so, which by no means makes me an old man around these parts, but I do remember what it was like to just not get spam. But I also remember what it was like to try to find anything on the internet at the time. You basically didn't, unless it was well known. You found most things by following links from server to server which we all thought was pretty neat. Now look at things.
There are some technical issues related to internet use. It should be technically more difficult to spam people. We will eventually achieve some sort of consensus and make it more difficult through technical means. Right now, just concentrate on your filtering. It will get better. If you want to make it get better faster, attach yourself to a project to accomplish these goals, or start one of your own, and produce something.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"