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Spyware Company Sues Utah Over Anti-Spyware Law
cgibby98 writes "An earlier Slashdot article talks about how web businesses oppose Utah's new spyware law. A story in Tuesday's Deseret Morning News says that WhenU.com filed suit Monday against the state, its governor, and attorney general, trying to keep the law from going into effect next month. The lawsuit claims the law violates WhenU's constitutionally-protected right to advertise."
So, lemme ask: Would you allow me to install some software on your phone line that would interject with advertisements from time to time? No. You pay for a specific service with your phone line and you don't want to have to be interrupted with ads when you are talking with family, friends or business partners. If this lawsuit is accepted, then one would not have any protection to prevent ads from appearing during your phone calls. As a resident of Utah, I am not usually happy with all of the legislation that occurs up on capitol hill here, but this is one bit of legislation that I fully support.
From the suit: "private enforcers, motivated by the act's draconian penalties and the promise of attorneys' fees, may still seek to sue WhenU for allegedly violating the act."
Well, yeah. That is just the point folks. I don't want spyware on my system. (one of the many reasons I use a Macintosh)
Thus, the act presents WhenU with the impossible choice of either foregoing constitutionally protected advertising and spending significant sums to comply with the act (thereby reducing the effectiveness of its business), without any guaranty that it will avoid liability in doing so, or else being subjected to millions of dollars of claims by private litigants."
No, actually. It is quite simple: Go out of business. Your business model is corrupt and unwanted by both consumers and legitimate businesses. We don't want you here and you can't force yourself on consumers that do not want you. That is the point of the law, the people have spoken and the legislators have listened and responded. And NO.....you don't have a constitutionally mandated right to invade my privacy. That is what it really comes down to.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
"WhenU's software, one of the apparent targets of the act, is installed only with user consent, and does not invade the privacy of computer users..."
I'm not familiar with WhenU's software, but I find this hard to believe. Can this statement be defined with the same style of deceit that seems to encompass adware companies? Anyone who knows of their spyware's habbit's please shed some light on this.
The law also curbs pop-up advertising on the Internet and calls for penalties of $10,000 per violation.
That's quite significant for a pop-up, don't you think? I mean I'm 100% against that kind of advertising, but $10000 seems incredibly steep.
Wireless News www.DailyWireless
Give me a break! Their argument is ridiculous! The "right to advertise"?! When they're using MY hard drive, MY CPU cycles, and MY bandwidth to do it?! If some brick-and-mortar company spray painted their ads on the side of my house, or hooked up the lighting for their billboard to my electrical socket, then surely that's not protected under the "right to advertise"... especially if they are using ads that are "stolen" from their competitors...
I'm not saying that this is a great law, especially since it's basically one advertiser fighting against another advertiser, but still, enough with the constitutional rhetoric already, what we're talking about is people hijacking personal property, be it my computer or some other company's advertisements! Just give me a choice (even if it's buried in the EULA) and get on with it! Like it's that hard to throw in a window saying "Do you want to install this?"
In other news: Microsoft sues the United States over antitrust laws....crap now I'm giving them ideas.
Pretty widgets? What pretty widgets?
... and then the state responds with fines, for invasion of privacy, and the frivilous lawsuit is dismissed. If the world were fair.
Congress shall enact no law which prevents a company, firm, organization or political party from annoying the living hell out of you with advertising. Firms may use technologies existing or not yet existing to "blast" consumers with advertisements or steal personal information.
Funny how I missed that earlier!
God Bless America. Why? Did it sneeze?
Which particular section of the US constitution are they referring to? I don't recall anything in there about the right to spam, the right to install spyware or the write to take over someone else's computer in pursuit of the almighty dollar -- but as a UK citizen I admit to not having read it as closely as a US citizen may have done.
Imagine if WhenU wins. I can just see the massive amounts of viral spam that will flood the internet. People will begin writing viruses for the sole purpose of spreading their advertisements. No longer will they just mislead and trick helpless users into installing their "applications," but also they'll be proactive and force people to install their "applications" by exploiting bugs in common e-mail clients and internet browsers.
The good side is that the problem is self healing. If they lose, no problem it's all good. If they win, spammers will take it too far and it will get repealed.
I can count to 1023 on my hands. Ask me about #132.
Maybe, if they didn't have their software installed unwantingly by hidden methods of attaching to other software and trick pop-ups, then they wouldn't have laws passed against them. Of course, at the same time, nobody in their right mind would install their crap. I mean seriously, who would be excited about some new freeware they found that redirects their surfing and increases their amount of popup ads. Even when they don't have a browser open.
The Supreme Court has ruled numerous times that commercial speech (advertising) can be restricted. It's not the same as political speech which gets a much higher level of protection.
Like it's that hard to throw in a window saying "Do you want to install this?"
No, that's actually the easy part. The hard part is getting the window to show up AFTER the spyware's already been installed, and rigging it so that clicking "no" destroys the ability to uninstall it.
God dammit, I'd better shut up before some jackhole actually implements this...
"Why Subscribe?" Good question...
The sad thing is, the people who install that crap are in their right minds. It's that their right minds aren't working right to begin with. :p
Christopher S. 'coldacid' Charabaruk -- coldacid.net
Do they actually provide any measurable service to the users who use their product?
They sell advertising. Advertising is legal. But in order to sell advertising, they have to own or otherwise pay for the right to use the medium that they use to advertise.
If you own a building with a billboard, you can sell that space.
If you provide some form of media (print, tv, movies, or internet), you can sell advertising.
This company and others like it, do not own your pc, they are not your ISP, and they are (probably?) not providing some form of service to you.
So what right do they have to advertise to you, or sell information from your PC, beyond the end user being stupid enough to agree to some liscence?
END COMMUNICATION
then I think they are playing with fire, because it can easily be alleged that they are violating other constitutional rights such as rights to privacy and protection from unreasonable search.
You see, if they want to make bogus charges, we can too.
P.S. IANACLBIDSAAHELN
(I am not a constitutional lawyer but i did stay at a Holiday Express Last Night)
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
The right to annoy doesn't superceed the right to advertise.
Ever.
This company produces one of the hardest spyware / adware program to get rid off (Save and Weathercast) I've spen days fixing computer with there software installed. Can I send them a bill for all the trouble they have cost my company. People click the EULA but give them an option to uninstall the software and not hijack the machine.
Well it's about time that the Constitution started protecting the things near and dear to me.
We can't spam you using your system anymore, we might have to go develop a REAL business model.
Pay attention you. The people have spoken adn we don't want you.
49 states to go.
who are these people who mod down perfectly on-topic jokes "off-topic?"
if I had mod points, the parent would be +5 Funny.
protections in the constitution only apply to what the government can/can't do, not individuals
If you live by the sward, be prepared to be shot down by the gun.
for the last time people, I am "frodo from middle eaRTH", not "middle eaST".
If you don't want spyware, why not refuse from agreeing to EULA's that involve it, and run scanning programs like ad-aware? If I don't like my neighbor looking through my window, it's my responsibility to take him to court - I shouldn't try and get a law passed that the police need to go around actively seeking people who peek through windows.
I ran ad-aware every couple days when I used windows.
Are you being sarcastic? We're already at this point with most of the prevelant viruses being used to forward spam, and the problem hasn't healed itself yet. I don't know when or even if it's possible to be self-healing considering what happens with most of these viruses.
couldn't this be a positive use of DMCA?
all our specific keystrokes, mouse clicks,
mouse movements, web clicks, etc comprise
a copyrightable, and therefor copyrighted,
body of work...so any sw that captures these,
and sends them to a third party, (which is what
spyware does), is clearly breaking the DMCA.
any lawyers out there that can comment on this?
Oh, my bad, you've actually got a point there! Actually, now that I think about it, the "spending significant sums to comply with the act (thereby reducing the effectiveness of its business)" probably has more to do with the fact that their business model is based on duping their "customers" and they'll have to reorganize the whole company around this law.
This shit is getting out of control. I'm all for *free speech* if such a thing truly exists anymore, but christ when are these companies and the US government going to wake up? Everything going on now seems to be a fight for control more than a fight for rights... or perhaps it's the inherent nature of capitalist businesses to feel that it's their *right* to make money regardless of how, whom they affect or where they want to draw income.
Companies want to control what you download, they want to control what you buy or from whom, they want to control what you do with products after you've bought them. Everytime they feel they're being inhibited in some way the ones with enough money buy out the lawmakers to make the rules favor them... the ones with lesser amounts of money sue the lawmakers/government...
It's getting absolutely ridiculous. I'm not trolling and I don't give a rats ass about the economic, social or environmental benefits of being capitalist, nor do I give a shit about writing congress, senators or any others about what I'm displeased with. These lawsuits need to stop... and these companies that think it's their god given right to control everything we as the public see and touch has got to stop as well.
Yikes... I mean... what 'right' do they have to invide our privacy? To use bandwidth other people pay for to try to sell whatever junk they are peddling?
It reminds me of a sci-fi story I read a few years back, in which society was totaly taken over by capitalist forces... I can't recall much of the plot sadly, but I do recall one of the main characters beeing punished for owning a set of earplugs and therefore 'stealing' time form the companies by not listening to the non stop comercals on the radio.
It's free speech again, in a way. The company may have a right to say whatver they want, but I have a right not to listen... and I have the right to throw them out of my home, and my computer. And now an entire state in the US has, in a way, thrown them out of their home.
Whats next? A company claiming the right to paint ads in your livingroom?
Everything in the world is controlled by a small, evil group to which, unfortunately, no one you know belongs.
The problem with that is that some spyware hides itself with ActiveX controls and crap that you're asked to install in IE, without being given an EULA to read. When the spyware isn't the control itself, that is.
Though always checking with Ad-Aware and its kin is always good.
Peeking through windows isn't common enough to warrant hunting laws. The prevailance of spyware, however, requires laws more proactive than reactive.
Christopher S. 'coldacid' Charabaruk -- coldacid.net
Because, WhenU install our spyware, U Be Screwed! ...and we need to protect that.
I didn't mod it down, but it sure ain't funny...
I just thought I'd share, so no one else has to waste their time looking for it. (I haven't read it yet, however)
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
I consider spyware and adware publishers to vandalists. I work at the help desk at my local ISP and I spend more time explaining to people what spyware is and why we can't fix their computers for them then anything else. Sure many times you have to click shady license agreements, but I myself have personally seen how easy it is to be bombarded with illegitimate software. I run spybot and Adaware often and use the immunization features and usually only browse with Firefox yet last week I still got "infected" with 5 different spyware apps simultaneously. They killed my Winsock stack. Luckily I know how to repair XP with my eyes closed but to 99% of the users out there this would send them running to a computer repair shop with their wallets open. Unfortunately, most users are ignorant that spyware even exists and blame their manufacture or worse, their ISP, for their computer slowing to a crawl. They don't understand that a microchip doesn't deteriorate with age, but the software running on it sure can. It's pretty sad when I have to tell a 90 year old woman trying to get her grandkids emails that she has to find someone else to fix her PC for her because she downloaded software to make her IE have pretty skins. Advertising is one thing if you agree to it as a means to keep consumer costs down, but when those ads corrupt a computer to useless that's not very cost effective. My company is thinking about charging to support spyware repairs but you don't want to even know how much that'll cost granny. For now I guess it's just sorry, but we can't support that. (We're not really mean about it, we often spend many hours in Regedit or MSConfig but there's only so much you can tell a novice over the phone plus time is money. We have real network issues to fix first.)
LOOP1: MOV CX,2 LOOP LOOP1
Wouldn't a NY company putting advertising on a Utah PC be considered interestate commerce and thus not regulated by the states in accordance with the Constitution? I'm inclined think so but I'm certainly no expert on the matter. Would any of the geek lawyers care to comment.
If your wondering, no I have no love for any spy/malware company. I'm just seeking clarification.
There is nothing inherently safe about liberty. That's why so many people died protecting it.
Hi. I'm Troy McClure. You might remember me from such spyware films as Mad Inc's "Spy vs Spyware" and "Spies Like .us 2: Electric Boogaloo". Look for me to provide the voice of "Weatherbug" in the forthcoming Nickelodeon cartoon "Bonzi Buddy Funhouse"
It seems that in today's world, everything is tied to the first amendment of the US Constitution - the right to free speech. While advertisers have the right to free speech, they certainly don't have the right to force me to fork over money in order for them to exercise that right. I pay for my bandwidth. I own my computer. Its my personal property. I paid for that stuff. Advertisers can't simply stick a billboard in my front yard, without my permission (and without proper zoning laws, et al), and claim the first amendment to do so. They certainly have the right to advertise, but they don't have the right to arbitrarily decide where they can advertise. My yard is private property and owned by me. So is my computer hard drive.
I live in Utah, and this is one law which I do fully support. Its not targeting spyware where the user has been informed and concents to the installation. Its simply telling spyware companies to stop installing stuff without the user knowing whats being installed. If Joe User wants the spyware installed and knows full well what it does, then let Joe User install it.
I read a statement today about the lawsuit that asked the question: what would the founding fathers think of how the US Constitution is being used today to justify just about anything?
I for one can say that spyware companies have cost our company at least 200+ hours of my time of un-installing them and running ad-aware, which still doesn't even get rid of all of them. We ran ad-aware on a computer the other day and found 560 something pieces of spyware, now how come we cannot sue these companies for costing others time and money? We do the same thing if somebody defaces property, we make them pay for it so we don't have to waste our time and money on it. I am just waiting for someone to sue these companies, my bosses are both lawyers and I will be pressing them to do the same if someone else does it to show that it can be done!
If carrots got you drunk, rabbits would be fucked up. - Comedian Mitch Hedberg R.I.P. 03/30/68-2/24/05
We waste so much of our tax money on this kind of mentality. It's everywhere and it drives me nuts. Just who do these guys think they are. If you ask me they sound like 14 year olds. Some governments have implemented what's called LOSER pays and it sure stops idiot lawsuits like this from popping up. It makes people think twice before suing because they have nothing to lose if they lose.
constitutionally-protected right to advertise
What about our constitutionally-protected right regarding invasion of our privacy?
It's absurd that these companies can legally install applications on everyones machines and data-mine information without ever getting the users permission. Utah has always been kind of the bastard step-child of the US - nothing good ever comes out of it (Mormans, SCO, etc), but I back them 100% on this one!
When they also show me in the text of the Constitution where it says they have a right to violate private property to advertise. Last I checked there is this often abused amendment, number ten to be specific, which reserves all property rights powers to the people and states.....
I swear to God, if there was a gene for this kind of legalistic stupidity I would violate my principles as a voting libertarian and constitution party supporter and call for a nation-wide eugenics program.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
There's an interesting blog entry about this over at Wil Wheatons blog
constitutionally-protected right to advertise.
is the new constitutional right that will replace that tired old 4th amendment right not to be subject to unreasonable search and seizure.
The price was right and the powers that be figured they ought to give the people a new amendment in place of the old one (if anyone counts the total number will be the same) that was getting nullified by recent legislation.
Wait.
My mistake.
You do get an additional constitutional amendment protecting you from gay people calling themselves legally married.
Just don't say the constitution is being eroded, no sir.
We're getting more constitutional protections, not less.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Besides compared to what you would get sued for for sharing an MP3 or what the fine would be for DOSing the NY Times for 15 minutes, I consider that pretty reasonable.
My days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle...
Citation, please? And an explanation for all the IANALs out here in the audience?
"constitutionally protected right to advertise". Did I miss that one? Let's just hope some misguided lawmakers don't decide to combine that with the "right to bear arms". Or arm bears.
I was trying to see WhenU's side of the story by looking at . Unfortunately, when I tried to go there, my company popped up its standard "We can't let you see this web site" message. The blocking category? "Spyware". Apparenly the State of Utah is not the only group that classifies WhenU that way.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
No there isn't. Even if there were, it would be at wilwheaton.NET, not .org.
You know if WhenU claims a "right" to use my PC (that I paid for) for its advertising purposes, then I think I'm gonna claim a "right" to go pee on WhenU CEO's desk.
My PC is not a billboard, your desk is not a toilet. OK?
John.
"If some brick-and-mortar company spray painted their ads on the side of my house"
I think you're onto something there... *cough*
Ahem, can someone give me a list of spyware companies' addresses? I need some physical space to place a little advertising...
I'd join that, but a bunch of other Trekkies got there first and slashdotted it. I guess I'll have to to some other lame 3rd string Trek star web site for dumb trekkie musings. Is www.therealneelix.com back online yet?
I Belive it was commercial speech that was forced upon people who dont't want to hear it...like something installing in the backround without a proper uninstaller and forces popups...that should be banned evrywhere.
I think you're confused. This case isn't going to legalize viruses, and has nothing to do with viruses. If WhenU wins, things are exactly the same as they always was. If they loose, thats when things may change.
If WhenU.com is unhappy about Utah law, I can only imagine how they will respond if either the proposed Software Principles Yielding Better Levels of Consumer Knowledge (SPYBLOCK) Act or the Controlling Invasive and Unauthorized Software Act is passed and signed into law.
These bills have been covered by:
PC World
InfoWorld
ComputerWorld, and
TechNewsWorld
Only Women Bleed (Sex, Sharia remix)
The most notable case is Central Hudson Gas & Electric v Public Service Commission, which resulted in the Central Hundson test:
Lawmakers that are anti-spyware would likely consider it deceptive.
You should see the NZ founding document then, the treaty of Waitangi. Three paragraphs. One page. And people still argue about what it means!
What the hell is that?! No one has a right to try and get me to buy something. And if they do, it damn well needs to be taken away. That's not a right, it's an abuse of my personal space. If a good or service is well produced and I need/want it, then I will buy it. Otherwise, that business has the right to keep OUT of my life.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
I have fixed about 10 machines in the last week that were made useless from there software.
Makes me think of Jennifer Government by Max Barry, but I don't think that's it.
Christopher S. 'coldacid' Charabaruk -- coldacid.net
...promulgate such regulations without impermissibly burdening interstate commerce
I got a 700 on my SAT verbal and still can't make heads or tails of that. Do I just need a better dictionary (or just one that makes up funny sentences to get around anti-spam/spyware laws)?
constitutionally-protected right to advertise
I must have fallen asleep in class. Which amendment is that?
Congrats. on getting the 5 score, AC. *However*...your point about political speech being protected is, I'm afraid, outdated. These days, thanks to the McCain-Feingold love child laughably referred to as the Campaign Finance Reform act (shoulda been called the Incumbent Protection Act), it's basically illegal to criticize (in the media) a congressman within 60 days of an election.
This monstrosity has recently been reviewed and upheld by said Supreme Court.
Gotta love their press releases...
Whenu Wins Another Legal Victory In Fight For Consumer Desktop FreedomConsumer desktop freedom... Nice...
-Phil
Shoot questions, first ask later...
Advertising != Free Speech
Nike argued that in the Cali Supreme Court and lost. Then the US Supreme court said, ``Don't bug us about this''
Personally I am sick and tired of the corporate welfare program that exists in the US. If you don't have a viable business plan, you should and will fail....unless you are a huge multi-national company that owns a few senators.
...would also like to add that telemarketing companies recently tried to challenge the "Do Not Call" registry arguing that it was protected under the first amendment, and were denied: http://www.badgerherald.com/vnews/display.v/ART/20 04/02/23/403968bc4418a
Member of Orkut? Annoyed with spam?
There are already legal limits to aggressive advertising, that are not considered to impinge free speech. To name a few:
- Posting monster billboards in residential neighbourhoods, even with the landwner's permission. (Except during elections)
- Phoning or ringing doorbells or standing in front of my house with a megaphone bellowing sales pitches at ungodly hours.
- Junk faxes
- Indecent, misleading or libellous ads, including those which appear to be regular traffic signs. (Road closed - detour through mall)
- Posting on private property without the owner's explicit permission.
I think this sort of thing is covered by the last case. If I send a 10 page flyer to your house that gives me permission to make unlimited use of your personal property unless you read the fine print on page 7 and mail it back to me within 10 days with the "NO" box ticked, no court in the land will accept this as implied permission. And it ought to be the case for spam/spyware as well.
My rights don't need management.
Now this isn't a troll, because common sense tells me that spyware should not be allowed to operate the way it does today, but... From legal perspective, don't users agree to install spyware and accept its activities via those click-through EULAs that come with various "free" downloads?
The issue seems not to be spyware, but not adequately warning users of what is being installed on their systems. It would seem to make more sense to pass legislation that requires standard, plainly and prominently shown notification of what habits a program tracks and what sort of advertising it does, shown on its own page before installation. A blanket ban seems a bit extreme.
On another note, spyware seems to invade my system even though I am pretty saavy and do all I can to avoid it. It would appear some companies take advantage of IE exploits to stick these things on my system, but I can't say for sure.
The prompt window would probably say
Do you want to install our new service that does "real good thngs" for you?
Note: It will not telling you that our service also sends back your every mouseclick and keystroke to our master computer or steals your "spare" cpu cycles to meet our nefarious ends.
With the only indication of these thing being buried deep in some legaleeze laden near undecipheral EULA
whenu.com is blocked off from my happy little network. Unfortunately, I can't protect many machines from the scum with this action, but I hope many MANY others also block whenu.com
ya' mean we ain't there yet?
spit on the sidewalk? - 90 days...
climb a rock? - 180 days...
joke about "explosive flip-flops" in the air-port? - guantanimo bay...
How about a constitutional ammendment instituting a "Sunset" clause -- something like giving legislation a maximum life span of 3 terms, after which it must either be re-proposed, and ratified, or taken off from the books.get rid of these silly laws about how one can (or can't) wear their facial hair, in church, &c., while we're at it.
...and the Bill of Rights is directed at the government, not individuals.
Member of Orkut? Annoyed with spam?
Too bad it isnt a national thing, but according to Oregon's constitution, stripping is considered free speech.
=D
In the article they are quoted as saying that the software does not violate privacy at all.
w .html
Here's a summary of their savenow software:
http://www.doxdesk.com/parasite/SaveNo
Quote: "What it does
Advertising
Yes. SaveNow keeps a list of URLs and terms it is interested in on disk, in the file 'SaveNow\savenow.db' in Program Files. This file is obfuscated but it is trivial to decode.* The (large - often over a megabyte) file maps from these targets to adverts to serve, which are downloaded through Akamai's proxies.
Privacy violation
As well as downloading the pop-up ads, SaveNow connects to WhenU's servers to log the ad impression. It passes the name of the affiliate software which installed the software, the ID of the advert being shown, and the site URL or term that caused the pop-up to be triggered.
No cookie is set on these accesses, so at the moment users are not being tracked across sites visited.
Security issues
The WUInst variant can be used by any web site to download and install SaveNow or other code form WhenU.
Stability problems
Yes. Can cause frequent crashes"
shouldnt spyware fall under the electronics laws that make it illegal for a hacker to take over or enter a computer with out permission. at least for those that dont show up in a EULA. those that do show up in the EULA, if you dont want the spy-ware, simple dont use the software.
If WhenU wins the court will make a statement which will limit what laws the government are allowed to make. They're near viral already. Have you ever tried to remove one of the bad ones using "Add/remove programs?" It simply re-installs itself as a different name. That's VERY borderline viral already. They also use misleading popups to install themselves. Some will install using the plugin-style remark, "You need to download and install this plug-in for internet explorer in order to view the current webpage."
If they win, they will do things like the following scenario with a particularly unskilled computer user, we'll call him "Cloobie":
1.) Cloobie searches the web for a program to synchronize his computer's clock to a standard source.
2.) Cloobie gets stuck in a recursive pop-up asking for authorization to install a piece of software, once he gives up, and agrees he sees a 500 page EULA stating that the software has to right to do basically whatever it wants and he agrees to allow it.
3.) Cloobie is happy, he has found what he wanted.
4.) Cloobie happens to be on a company-owned computer and the software writes itself to all open shares, doing techniques like renaming other executable files and taking their names. The program silently installs on anyone's computer who runs the executables, and then the executable simply passes on to the real app they wanted to run.
End result is a virus that could technically be construed as legal, even if on shakey ground.
I can count to 1023 on my hands. Ask me about #132.
... don't go all strict constructionist on me now!
The Right to Advertise is right in there, next to the Right to Private Abortions and the Right to Join The National Guard In Order To Bear Arms.
;)
Anyone know of any group/website that publishes a list of those companies who knowingly or unknowingly advertise through spyware companies such as WhenU? Shouldn't those companies who advertise with spyware be politely informed that their advertising tactics are not appreciated by their potential customers? If the companies acknowledge their use of spyware, shouldn't they be boycotted and/or reported to such agencies as the Better Business Bureau? If the companies claim ignorance, shouldn't they be boycotted for having stupid advertising/PR people until they can clean up their act?
free advertising!
Dont give them ideas!
emt 377 emt 4
Give me a break! Their argument is ridiculous! The ?right to advertise??! When they?re using MY hard drive, MY CPU cycles, and MY bandwidth to do it?! If some brick-and-mortar company spray painted their ads on the side of my house, or hooked up the lighting for their billboard to my electrical socket, then surely that?s not protected under the ?right to advertise?? .. I agree with the thought, but it brought up another thought in my mind.. For the purpose of discussion, let me ask this: When you see commercials on cable or satellite TV, aren't they using "your power" and "your bandwidth" (your cable or satellite)? They're using "your hardware" (the TV) also. Is this different? You are paying for the cable or satellite service (not sure if it's the same with broadcast tv). I could be way off base here, but it seemed like a good point to bring up ;)
This space for rent, inquire within.
At the very least, gives users the option to pay or see pop-ups. Salon gives users the option to subscribe or sit through an advertisement for a day pass. I find that fair and honest.
I've always wondered if it's possible to sue the spyware companies for theft. Consider that a user pays somewhere around $150 for their CPU and $100 for their hard drive. If they don't give the user a chance to deny the spyware installation would it not make sense to charge them a fee for each cycle of the processor used, and charge rent on the hard drive space they take up?
AMEN! So now when are Slashdotters going to stop defending copyright infringement as a constitutional rights issue?
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Remember, nobody *owes* you a living. I've had both General Managers and CEO's tell me that, repeatedly. Now, go practice what you preach.
C|N>K
While I don't think this law is good (overly broad, ill-defined), people like WhenU deserve to go down in flames. I propose a class action lawsuit on behalf of everybody who has had this crap sneak onto their computer.
I think this is like some rug cleaner salesman who comes to your house and spills some crap on your rug to show how well it works. Only it ruins your carpet, and the salesman says that you consented to it (by letting him in).
Only it's more like some guy coming to your house offering to reset all of your clocks to the correct time, and in doing so plugs remote listening devices so that he can hear whatever you say. Then they use that information to play ads over hidden speakers plugged into your telephone outlet. And when you try to unplug them, you find they are connected in such a way that requires an electrician to fix it!
Clearly, anybody doing such things would quickly find themselves in court. I think some state DAs need to start suing these bastards!
aQazaQa
Which particular section of the US constitution are they referring to? I don't recall anything in there about the right to spam, the right to install spyware or the write to take over someone else's computer in pursuit of the almighty dollar -- but as a UK citizen I admit to not having read it as closely as a US citizen may have done.
Fascinating how rights that don't exist appear as they please the reader ... while those that do exist (2nd) vanish ...
I fully support this case, because I'm sure WhenU will lose, and at the same time the courts opinion will be useful in further clarifying the nature of the rights in this area. Litigation like this is actually useful: as opposed to other places (like the UK, where I am) that trundle on for years with uncertainty about how things work.
I promote, as an appropriate punishment for spyware, the shoe-crapping. Specifically, persons found in violation are required temporarily to cede their shoes to the state, during which time the attorney general is required to take a crap inside of said shoes. Following this, the shoes are returned to the offender.
...similar ideas. Several different "watch ads get to have free intarweb" deals, and at least one "free" long distance teleophony attempt I remember, it was something like you needed to listen to a 30 second ad and got 5 minutes free domestic LD, something like that.
I don't care as long as it's opt-in & opt-out, and you can *easily* remove every trace of the program,return to the state you had before installation, and it doesn't do anything more than what it says upfront it does.
By downloading the SaveNow software, you give permission to WhenU.com to display relevant contextual information and offers. The SaveNow software selects which ads and offers to display to individual users based on several factors, including: URLs associated with Web pages visited by the user, search terms typed by the user into search engines, HTML content of the Web pages viewed by the user and the local zip code of the user.
a sp
The software protects users' privacy by uploading a database of content in small chunks to individual desktops, and then determining on the desktop whether to retrieve information from WhenU.com or third-party servers. To protect user privacy, the same database of content is sent to all desktops. Decisions regarding which ads to retrieve to an individual desktop are all processed on the user's desktop - and isolated from WhenU.com servers. User privacy is also protected in the following manner:
1) Personally-identifiable information is NOT required in order to use the software and WhenU.com does NOT know the identity of individual users of the software
2) As the user surfs the Internet, URLS visited by the user (i.e. the user's "clickstream data") are NOT transmitted to WhenU.com or any third party server
3) WhenU.com does NOT assemble personally-identifiable browsing profiles of users
4) WhenU.com does NOT assemble anonymous machine-identifiable browsing profiles of individual users
5) WhenU.com does NOT track which ads and offers are seen or clicked on by individual machines - analysis and tracking is done in the aggregate
Each individual desktop is assigned an anonymous, unique machine ID. This machine ID is used ONLY to enable WhenU.com to count unique, active desktops in the network. The machine ID is NOT used to determine which ads to serve individual users or to create browsing profiles of users. When ads are displayed by the software, impressions and click-throughs are reported to WhenU.com servers. To protect user privacy and prevent WhenU.com or any third party from assembling user profiles, the unique machine ID is NOT included in the impression and click-through reports sent by the desktop to WhenU.com servers.
SaveNow does NOT place any cookies on your desktop. It is possible that a third party advertising on our network might place a cookie on your desktop. If you wish to opt-out from third party cookies, please click on the following link and follow the instructions: http://www.networkadvertising.org/optout_nonppii.
WeatherCast's function is to provide you with your local weather conditions and forecasts. WeatherCast adheres to all of the privacy statements made above in this section. WeatherCast does store your zip code or city on your desktop in order to provide you with your local weather; however, there is NO personally-identifiable information required or collected in order to use the software. Your zip code may be used either by WeatherCast or Save! to show you targeted local offers.
WhenU.com may update privacy statements for the SaveNow software at any time. More information about SaveNow is available here, or for any further questions please email privacy@whenumail.com
The definition of spyware is pretty narrowly written and encompasses a number of different and nasty things. I'd be very disappointed if a challenge to the law carried, and I wouldn't want anything to do with a business that felt that this law would pose a serious threat to their operations.
distinctions have led the Court to conclude that "the Constitution . . . affords a lesser protection to commercial speech than to other constitutionally guaranteed expression."
The first link details the distinctions..
We do not have a history of profitable operations. Our future SCOsource licensing revenue is uncertain.
Numerous laws already cover the unauthorized use of private computing resources.
It would be interesting to see what the Utah AG would do to WhenU.com if some citizen sent a certified letter to WhenU refusing them permission to further run their software on your system should it be discovered that WhenU continued to abuse those unauthorized computing resources.
Besides the invasion of privacy, spyware steals CPU cycles, disk space, and the productive value of the PC. As a Sys Admin, I am constantly battling spyware with "Drive-by" installs. The loss of business productivity is astounding.
Could the spyware companies be shut down using anti-racketeer laws (assuming they are located in the US)?
Shoot.. The distinctions are in this link..
We do not have a history of profitable operations. Our future SCOsource licensing revenue is uncertain.
Most of this problem boils down to clueless users.
I'm sure buried in the EULA somewhere, you give permission for the spyware/adware activities.
People need to learn that there is no such thing as a free lunch, and if it sounds too good to be true, it is!
These people brought the problems on themselves, not that I like syware and adware.
Wasn't there an article here recently about a propasal to force these companies to boldly label their products to indicate what nefarious activities they perform? I personally like the idea. It's kinda like the law requiring labeling of ingredents in food.
Commercials aren't stored inside of your TV when you power off.
My hard drive is my notepad. Tell adware/spyware companies to go write on their own paper.
+++ATHZ 99:5:80
God you're dumb... The Constitution does not protect the right urinate on someone's desk. However, according to WhenU's logic, you ARE protected if you write "SCO Sucks" with your piss. If you need extra bottled water (maybe enough to write "WhenU and SCO Both Suck A Whole Lot But Not In The Good Way") I would be happy to contribute.
Oh wow you can sue politicians for making laws?! so why has no-one been sued for the DMCA, PATRIOT-ACT, PIRATE-ACT and all those other blaitently rights-violating laws? someone needs to sue Fritz Hollings and that Hatch fool and quite rightly expose them as the incompetent idiots they are that shouldnt be in power. Can we get a fund going?
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
is that US law regards corporations as persons, with rights. While I'm not clear whether or not they are considered "artificial" persons (as distinguished from "natural" persons) and thus their rights would in theory be held subordinate to those of natural persons, corporations can afford better lawyers. In a court system where the smoothest-talking legal team often prevails, you can see the problem.
In this case, a corporation is claiming free speech protections under the First Amendment...which is a load of purest bullshit given the nature of their business, but courts have bought into dumber arguments.
A quick Google for "corporate personhood" will give you a pretty good picture of how Americans who are familiar with the issue feel about it.
-Carolyn
Like Daddy always said: if you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, baffle 'em with bullshit.
An interesting thing about this act is that it cost the government 7 months, $6 million, and a team of 14 experts just to come up with that acronym. Strangely, 3 out of the 14 who worked on the project were found dead shortly after it ended. All 3 deaths were classified as suicides.
I thought if you moderated in a thread, that you could not post to it.
But, this post leads me to believe you can reply to a thread you have modded, IF you post AC?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
you probably know it more as savenow. a nasty varient of spyware. if you do a ctrl-alt-del and you see savenow in your process list, then you got it.
this site tells you what it does
spybot and ad-aware both remove it if you got it on your PC
click here for spybotSD
For Ad-Aware.
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
How about the little-known fact that Mormonism is based in hatred for Native Americans? When settlers first saw the Midwestern burial mounds, they thought that the Indians were stupid savages who were too dumb to have made earth mounds. So people made up fakey theories about Europeans and others having built the mounds instead.
The Mormon founder was a huckster who cashed in on this, and made it big with his own mound hoax which has endured for a long time.
They claim - and I quote:
WhenU's software, one of the apparent targets of the act, is installed only with user consent, and does not invade the privacy of computer users.
Well for starters, at the University where I work, I run one of the computer labs for the particular college I work under (we have several). Despite our best efforts, we invariably have to clean a machine out from a bunch of spyware that has infested it - Deep Freeze seems to have culled that from the main lab, but as the rest of campus isn't subnetted yet (stupid central IT budget) we can't roll it out on the rest.
What do I find when I go through the machines with Spybot to figure out what's going on with them? Invariably, it's the same fucking story.
eZula, Gator (YES YOU ARE SPYWARE YOU FUCKING LYING BASTARDS), WhenU.SaveNow, Lycos Sidebar, Apropos, and whatever else their current tricklers are dumping in.
Twice we've caught them actually installing. In the background, no user clicks required, no EULA agreed to. Just the installers dropping in from some webpage and then silently running the trickler (and downloading OTHER tricklers) till the machine's spyware-ed half to death.
Fuck you, WhenU. We all hope you go away. The POINT of this legislation is to drive you out of business and I hope the court throws your lying ass right out on the street to suffer.
If they have a constitutional right to advertise, then I am the owner of the publication in which they want to place the ads. My current rates for advertisements are quite reasonable. USD $1,000,000 for every appearance of the ad. A minimum lot of 100 appearances is required. All fees are payable in advance.
This post may be understood as flamebait by those who do barely try to see things from my point of view, but I can brace myself up against that. The issue is, I do not really see where some peoples' complaints against major advertising companies lie, as it seems apparent to me that the softwares' privacy policy has always been available to the end-user. Out of curiosity, I visited WhenU's site to verify whether or not there was truely a case of non-consent on the behalf of the user, and of breach of the user's privacy. WhenU's privacy policy is freely available on their site, and for the lazy among you, these are basically the most important paragraphs:
So far, so "clean" -- WhenU.com informs the user of the information that is sent to WhenU.com, and also details which information is not used, and when the required information is sent. Although, my cynicism pushed me to download the SaveNow software just to check whether or not there were some strings attached with the software itself; on installation, I read the privacy statement which was completely identical.So, according to this privacy statement the user consents to installing the software and subsequently to have the said software make use of the user's bandwidth to send anonymous usage statistics to WhenU.com and download advertising banners corresponding to the profile built with the anonymous information. I hastedly repeated the small research for Claria software (formerly GATOR software) and the results are pretty much identical -- the user consents to installing the program and have it use bandwidth to send anonymous information to Internet servers. So the major desktop advertising comapnies are sadly pretty much right when the affirm that the user is consenting to their software using their computer to perform various tasks and activities. Now the question which is preponderant in my mind is: what am I doing wrong here? There must be a further reason for everyone complaining about a breach of privacy, further than the statements in the privacy policies then -- but if the information in the privacy policies is invalid, doesn't that make the activity of these companies illegal?
"Really, I'm not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be a completely unintentional side effect" -- Linus Torval
I think it would be much simpler to push it back to around 1975 or so - the act of writing a piece of software makes the author responsible for it in all incarnations. If someone finds a security hole, the author is at least 50% responsible. Any losses the user incurs are at least 50% the responsibility of the author.
More than 50% liability is triggered by difficulty in uninstalling the program or any sort of legalese EULA that implies (incorrectly) that there is any limitation on the liability of the author.
Why only 50%? Because the user has to bear some of the risk no matter what.
This would inject some badly needed sanity into the OS and office suite world. It would also make virtually all software a lot more user-friendly by eliminating the notion that you can build a defective product, distribute it and claim that you aren't responsible.
IF the computer is not your, is a EULA valid? For example, If an emplyee of mine installs the software on my computer.
Lets send some EULA's to these pop-up advertisers and bury into the text a clause that allows us to paint thier company cars and building walls with our advertisements and also give us the right to borrow thier company cars.
hehe that was a good one...
I'd like to see more states inact laws for my right to keep near-viral craptastic shitware off my computer.
~D
This sig has been enciphered with a one-time pad. It could say almost anything.
Spyware = Virus/Trojan, the only difference is that spyware usually mentions itself on page 33 in 6pt font in the EULA for the software that it comes with and it has an uninstall program which usually forces you to visit their site first so they can threaten you and tell you how your computer will break down if you continue to uninstall their software. Then once you download the uninstaller (for fucks sake why doesnt the uninstaller thats registered under windows actually uninstall the software instead of taking you to a website??) you can uninstall the program,but still not be sure in the back of your mind if it actually uninstalled.
What i want to do is write my own 50 page EULA and get some politician and the head of a spy-ware company to agree without reading it, then they will feel the wrath as i suddenly own them and their kids - hey if they want to dispute it fine, but that means their EULA is null and void too and i can sue them back!
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
On the one hand, I agree with you. We have WAY too many laws, there is no end in sight, and that is BAD.
However, the alternative is a country in which the masses have more freedom than they know what to do with.
As Plato so aptly pointed out, the masses are stupid. Most people are ill-equipped to manage their lives.
Perhaps if we also put a stop to the practice of suing pencil-makers after attempting to draw upon one's own eyeball, and allowed 'the masses' to kill themselves off...then maybe a more libertarian society would work....
spyware software companies are the equivalent of somebody driving around in a van transmitting ads on radio frequencies without a license.
and constituonally protected right to _advertise_? seriously, whadd-a-flyin-fuck??
-
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
I just learned a new word from the article:
Utahns - citizens of Utah, apparently
The three homonyms you may find useful to remember...
** cite
** sight
and
** site
see http://www.cooper.com/alan/homonym_list.html#cite
There is NOTHING in the constitution about a 'right to advertise'. There is a right to free speech (basically free opinion and expression) but this does not extend in any way to advertising. Even the freedom of speech does not guarantee a platform for that speech--you may have to provide your own. That is to say, you're free to your opinion, free to voice it if you can provide the means, but that does not extend to these ridiculous interpretations that keep popping up. Any businesses in Utah that join this suit, I suggest everyone notify them that we will no longer be using their services.
" There is a right to free speech (basically free opinion and expression) but this does not extend in any way to advertising"
The Constitution actually makes no such distinction.
... that example you site, a similar law could pass that affected your favorite pet peeve thing, and we've all got them. We've already seen throughly ridiculous and obviously unconstitutional "free speech" zones where anti-insert-favorite-pol-here protesters are herded like a mile away from his or her presence to some fenced in place where it's "lawful to protest", and if you don't go there and protest someplace else near the "annointed one" the goons arrest you.
Stuff has a way of dramatically getting out of control when you infringe freedoms.
With the adware/spyware, my thought is, illegal if it installs a program on your bow without your consent, or does something it doesn't admit to, or can't be removed or if it dramatically borks your other apps, etc, but if you go to a site at random-well, it's a big net, a site has bogus stuff you don't want to see, block it or don't go there. For instance, I occassionaly send off polite emails that require javascript be enabled in order to navigate the site. I hates it. javascript WORKS, it just is abused too much, so I always try to keep it turned off, and really don't visit sites that require it. if it's a site I REALLY want to access occassionaly, I'll send the webmaster an email and ask if they could alter the coding. Or say like "you need this browser only" sites. their descion to do that, but I do my part by asking them politely to recode if they want my visit. I want to use my browser, not their choice, but I also don't got to use their site either.And there's too many security risks with active scripting on webpages in general, just a bad idea, IMO. Too bad, but there ya go.
In meat world, the same thing, on a case by case basis, but I already got PLENTY of unConstitutional restrictions now, I don't need any more. I grew up protesting,civil rights on up, see no reason to put more restrictions on it, it's hard enough now to get constructive political changes or rollbacks to more constitutional behavior by government.. We went through too much gas, beatings, jail, etc to let it slide, and that means you have to be ready to allow the other guy his beef, even if you 100% don't agree with it. That part is CRITICAL I think.
Despotism doesn't happen overnight,, if you look back in history it always takes some time, a weird law here, some wild stuff there, first this thing than that thing gets restricted or outlawed, pretty soon, yep YOU are illegal in the eyes of the goonerment. Happens all the time.
Link to actual Bill
"Amendment IX The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
If this can be used to conjure a "right to privacy" from mere vapors, it can also be used to conjure such things as a "right to security" which can negate a right to privacy. Face it: a right to privacy just isn't there.
Whats next? A company claiming the right to paint ads in your livingroom?
Wasn't this roughly the same argument the anti-PVR broadcasters used? Something about how TV viewers have a "contract" to view the commercials interspersed with their programming...
For example, a contract for a car deal cannot reasonably include a clause that says "I agree to give my first-born son/daughter to Ford Motor Company". Of course, that fails in part becaues the clause is illegal, but even if slavery were legal, it would still fail because Ford did not give you any compensation that a reasonable person would consider comparable to the loss of one's first-born.
Similarly, installing a piece of software with embedded malware is not protected by the terms of the EULA because either:
- the EULA is a license agreement, which may only specify the terms under which you may use it and by its nature cannot give the program's author any rights to your system except when you are using the software, or
- the EULA is a contract, in which case it is non-binding because it contains clauses that do not include reasonable compensation.
Either way, I predict that the judge will issue a summary judgement in favor of the state of Utah. That having been said, IANAL, and contract law varies from state to state. It could be that Utah's contract law doesn't provide a requirement for reasonable compensation. I doubt it, though.Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
The issue is, I do not really see where some peoples' complaints against major advertising companies lie, as it seems apparent to me that the softwares' privacy policy has always been available to the end-user.
Hey Vex, I got a bridge that I assure you I have the rights* to sell. (*rights subject to change) Wanna buy it?
Privacy policies don't mean anything - they've never proven to be very enforceable in the first place and they all have nifty little disclaimers which make them meaningless:
WhenU.com may update privacy statements for the SaveNow software at any time.
and a look at the Wayback machine reveals they've updated their privacy policy at least eleven times. In the past they had neat stuff like this:
WhenU.com may collect user information such as gender, age and zip code to compile anonymous trend information about Internet and WhenU.com usage patterns. WhenU.com compiles statistics by aggregating information across large numbers of users. These statistics may be provided to third parties.
At any time WhenU could easily modify their privacy policy to give them any kind of rights. So they lay down a "user friendly" policy when they need to have a nice face or snow-job users, and then later, they modify the policy and start raping and pillaging their users' privacy and it's perfectly legal.
AFAIK, constitutional rights apply to _people_, not corporate entities... so forgive me if I'm a little confused about this, but exactly which constitutional ammendment are they referring to here?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
"constitutional rights apply to _people_, not corporate entities"
Corporations do nothing without people acting. Every advertisement is the expression of a person or persons working as a group.
There is no clause in the First Amendment "* does not apply if person speaking is a member of a group"
Corporations cannot use the 'bill of rights' since corporations have never explicitly been given any 'rights'. There have been judgements that have caused mass delusions within the legal profession that corporations have 'rights', but no changes have been made to the constitution to grant same 'rights' to corporations as those of citizens.
Corporations should-not/cannot be given the same rights as citizens. Corporations cannot be held to equal responsibilities as citizens, nor can be punished to equal measurements to citizens. Corporations have much more resources available to utilize the legal and/or government systems to their own purposes. The people responsible for running of corporations are not held responsible nor punished as harshly when found guilty.
Microsoft has competitors? Where?
There was a company called Apple. Ever hear of them? They went out of business in the early 1980s when the "Apple III" was a sales failure. I've heard of something called Linux, but as far as I know, no-one uses it outside of Finland. "Sun" is rumored to be developing something called OpenOffice, but this is not expected to be released until 2011.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Dude, wtf is up with software companies in UT? Are there any software companies in the state whose business model doesn't involve prosecuting|compromising|raping their customers?
Yes, my only tool is a hammer. And you're starting to look like a nail.
Parties to contracts get certain protections based on their understanding-- or assumed understanding-- of its terms. This comes up all the time in real estate, which is why we spend an inordinate amount of time explaining each individual clause of the contract to our clients. If something were to go wrong who do you think is going to get sued? The foul, nasty, tricksy realtorses that "tricked" them into the contract.
EULAs always make me think of the old axiom that oral contracts aren't worth the paper they're written on. Neither are click-through EULAs, and everyone knows it. Like software patents, they're a legal bomb looking for a good place to explode.
--Obyron
When you see commercials on cable or satellite TV, aren't they using "your power" and "your bandwidth" (your cable or satellite)? They're using "your hardware" (the TV) also. Is this different?
... nothing.
The television stations displaying the ads are getting compensation directly from the advertiser which is used to fund the programming I watch. As a television viewer I am willing to accept this arrangement: I am giving the advertiser the opportunity to sell me products in return for the programming I am watching. (Note: this does not obligate me to watch the ads, only give them the opportunity to present them to me.)
Pop-up adware receives funding from the advertisers and gives me nothing in return. They aren't funding the websites I'm viewing, they are possibly collecting marketing data from my online activities, and installing possibly harmful software on my machine which may reduce its functionality. Most of this is done without my direct knowledge and/or consent (and no, burying it in a EULA for some unrelated software does not count). And in return, I get
I am willing to tolerate advertising on television because I know the programming wouldn't exist without it. The internet and the sites I visit are receiving no compensation from this advertising and would still be there if the pop-up adware went away.
People's desire to believe they are right is much stronger than their desire to be right.
Yo, just wanted to give a holla out to my holmes Richard Cheney. Keep showing those arabs who owns this world and get that oil flowing, boy. Once we gots outselves a puppet govt in iraq we'll be jetsettin' and smokin J's will nellie ya'll. Ayo, propz to Cheney!
So now when are Slashdotters going to stop defending copyright infringement as a constitutional rights issue?
When the copyright laws are no longer unconstitutional.
People's desire to believe they are right is much stronger than their desire to be right.
Point is, there are plenty of poorly written laws out there, put in place by good intended people to curb "bad" behavior, which have been turned on their heads, and end up doing just the opposite of what their authors thought they would do. Example is the current set of SPAM laws just passed by the Federal government which will actually server to increase the amount of SPAM on the Internet, mostly by legitimizing opt-out "commercial" emails, and taking away most people's ability to effectively hit back at the perp's.
Just because a law is written to stop people from doing bad things to us doesn't mean that it effectively stops that bad behavior, without having unexpected, and sometimes disastrous side-effects!
Your Servant, B. Baggins
Utah, home of the litigious bastards.
Sounds like a basketball team.
"Providing a link to a Google search is not the same as citing a reference."
It is even better, because it can amount to citing many references.
CRAP! This /. post brought to you by WhenU.com, are you feeling inadequate? Then visit www.getareallybigpenisnow.com
Note: Read the fine print they TOLD me it was only going to be ads during phone calls
(\_/)
(O.o) This is Bunny. Add Bunny to your signature
(> <) to help him achieve world domination.
FYI, whenu's product is adware. You don't get it unless you install a free piece of software that it's bundled with.
Despite this crowd's general distaste for popups, users are installing *free* software and the makers of such software monetize it by revenue sharing agreements with companies like WhenU or Claria.
This law is horrible, if it's not stricken down there are wide ranging reprocussions.
The software protects users' privacy by uploading a database of content in small chunks to individual desktops, and then determining on the desktop whether to retrieve information from WhenU.com or third-party servers. To protect user privacy, the same database of content is sent to all desktops. Decisions regarding which ads to retrieve to an individual desktop are all processed on the user's desktop - and isolated from WhenU.com servers.
n rather than a privacy issue. Bill O'Reilly would be proud of that spin.
NOTE: It does NOT say the results of these decisions are not sent back to WhenU's servers. It merely states the "decisions regarding which ads to retrieve to an individual desktop are processed on the user's desktop". This reveals:
1. They are choosing to expend the user's processing/memory resources to make these decisions in lieu of their own network. That's more of a lets-waste-the-user's-resources-instead-of-our-ow
2. They are not explicitly saying they aren't collecting detailed info on the criteria used to make a decision; merely that the decision is being made locally. The words are twisted in such a way as to give the user the false impression that they are somehow protected when they are not.
3. They can at any time, elect to pull content from WhenU's servers instead of the localized database, which in effect sends the decision information to WhenU and worse, unnamed "third parties".
User privacy is also protected in the following manner:
1) Personally-identifiable information is NOT required in order to use the software and
All they say here is the info is "not required" - which is meaningless. It doesn't say they won't try to acquire personal information, which they obviously will.
WhenU.com does NOT know the identity of individual users of the software
1. This is a red herring. They can easily collect enough information to qualify the individual identity of the user, but they can claim that even with all this information, there is no guarantee [ever] of knowing whether the information is accurate, therefore they "do NOT know the identity".
The important thing to note here is, they are merely claiming they "do not know the identity"; they're not saying they "WILL not seek the identity", or "will not collect personally identifiable information". They will and they do, but if you ask them, they'll say, "Gosh, we really don't know if we could identify you based on the info we've collected..."
2) As the user surfs the Internet, URLS visited by the user (i.e. the user's "clickstream data") are NOT transmitted to WhenU.com or any third party server
This is a great example of the classic privacy policy snow-job. What they are leaving out is the three magic words which are implied: AT THIS TIME "URLs are not transmitted to WhenU.com". Because of the policy being subject to change at any time, this statement merely says right now they're not getting that info. It doesn't say they "will not ever" collect this information. Why not say that?
3) WhenU.com does NOT assemble personally-identifiable browsing profiles of users
4) WhenU.com does NOT assemble anonymous machine-identifiable browsing profiles of individual users
5) WhenU.com does NOT track which ads and offers are seen or clicked on by individual machines - analysis and tracking is done in the aggregate.
Again, more of the same. "Here's what we're doing RIGHT NOW" - it doesn't mean that tomorrow we won't be giving your personal info to every Herbalife distributor in North America, but right now we don't do that. Hooray! Yea, sign me up!
They have the right to say what they want. They just don't have the right to have anybody to listen to them.
Love your country always, but respect your government only when it deserves it. -- Mark Twain
Of course corporations are made up of people, but most advertising is not the people speaking, it's the corporation itself, merely using people as the medium or means by which to get that message to other people. While the people have a constitutional right to freedom of speech, does the corporation itself? No.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
It's not the same as political speech which gets a much higher level of protection.
Over Easter weekend I was checking my Yahoo mail on my nephews computer and got hit with a pop-up to vote for GWB. As I've never known yahoo to have pop-up ads, I assume it came from one of the various spyware thingies infecting said computer (later removed by me). Hence, it could be argued that the pop-up inducing software is political speech.
There are so many unanswered questions about EULA's...
Like... what if a 12 year old agrees to one?
What if the EULA for spyware says it may never be uninstalled without their permission?
What if the EULA says that you can't sell the OS without the original PC.
I mean, EULAs say a lot of stuff; they're like the punk down the street, always runnin' his mouth, always claiming what he can and can't do. But he's never proven any of it.
Nobody has the money to stare these guys down, and the companies quite frankly don't really want them tested in court.
Okay, what's the first rule of slashdot?
(1) Read the article.
Or even read the posting!
The company is in New York. Not Utah.
The state of Utah passed a law to ban spyware, and a spyware company based in New York (East coast, eastern time zone) is suing the State of Utah (Mountain time zone, west side of the Rocky mountains), claiming the law is unconstitutional.
So, to review:
(1) Nasty suing company in New York
(2) State of Utah being sued to banning spyware.
Got it now?
"people as the medium or means by which to get that message to other people. While the people have a constitutional right to freedom of speech, does the corporation itself? No."
Again, there is nothing in the Bill of Rights that nullifies the First Amendment based on the REASON someone is speaking.
"but most advertising is not the people speaking"
All advertisement is the people speaking.
But these "trickler" as you call them don't work in mozilla, because all of these guys rely on ActiveX controls.
Maybe its time to dump IE and use Mozilla (or something?).
It sounds trite, but using IE is like banging your head up against a wall. JUST STOP. And you'll feel better.
What I'd like to see (and which will never happen) is a fairly simple and very limited set of standard EULA "concepts" which are the only legally binding sort of EULA.
There would be a fixed (and very small, i.e. 7-10) set of catagories, such as:
- Redistribution
- Ownership
- Modification
- Impact to host computer
- Privacy
- Liability
And each of these catagories would have a small set of well-defined rights. For example, "Redistribution" might have the options:
- No redistribution
- Distribution with in altered form
- Distribution in altered form is attributed
- No restrictions
Of course these catagories would need to be much more well thought out than this, and by definiton they would not provide enough flexibility for a lot of the more "tricky" software out there. If your application fits nicely into these boxes, then you can use an EULA. If not, then you are screwed, and you can't use clickwrap.
If a license can't be reduced down to such a simple form, then I think it's not reasonable to expect the general public to accept it with a mouseclick.
I've heard of a celebrity who lost a lot in a divorce, even though the couple had a pre-nup. The pre-nup was written on a napkin, but because the other party didn't have a laywer to advise him/her it wasn't binding.
Can someone explain that to me?
OK, so spyware is in a mostly different category than viruses, but doesn't it seem odd that the companies with the greatest experience in scanning computers looking for software haven't moved into the market dominated by smaller companies/freeware?
I think it would be a HUGE seller to corporations who lose of a ton of productivity to this crap. I know I'd push it in a heartbeat if it was available, as would others.
So why does McAfee or Norton do this? I know it's not a conspiracy -- but it really feels like one.
Agreed, 100%. Web hosting is DIRT CHEAP. Hell, I'm an unemployed college student and I can afford the $8 per month to operate my site (which has 8 gigs of traffic and 200 megs of space- PLENTY enough for the vast majority of those sites that whine about needing popup ads and banners for revenue). If you can't afford $8 per month....
.us domain for like $10.
YOU ARE A CHEAP BASTARD.
If you can't afford $8 per month, you don't need to be running a web site. Period.
And don't complain about domain registration, either. I got my
if they maintain the "constitutionally-protected right" to advertise, then i maintain the right to bear arms against fools like this...
Ummm, you missed that Campaign Finance "Reform" law, didn't you? A felony to state the name of a candidate for federal office 60 days before the election, unless you happen to be a newspaper or TV station.
I'm getting very worried about my nick coming true sooner rather than later.
-paul
Pistol caliber is like religion: everyone has their favourite, and theirs is the only right choice.
Agreed, the argument is outrageous. Doesn't mean it's not constitutionally valid.
Remember a few years ago when that doctor carved his initials into a womans abdomen during surgery...
is that considered "Right to advertise"?
No, it's harmful, and an invasion of personal rights.
To be GOVERNED is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so.
To be GOVERNED is to be at every operation, at every transaction noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be placed under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported,sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonored. That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality.
The sad thing is that "legitimate businesses" use services like these, yet we still buy things from them.
Companies like this stay in business for the same reason SPAMMERS stay in business: People buy products from companies that use these "services". People. That's not just one or two rubes, that's as in MILLIONS of people.
So, where is the problem? With the advertising company OR the consumer ?
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
...tactically of course I see where you are coming from, strategically I would try to use something different. Matterof degree and a long range view I guess. I am more interested in a long range return to full constitutional freedoms, and a DRASTIC reduction in the number of laws "on the books", rather than adding to them.
Someone else added that we have so many laws it's almost impossible to tell if you are a violator now, I'd go further and say that *everyone* right now is probably in "violation" of some har brained law or another, even if you think you are squeaky clean..
I'll tell ya something I know happened to two friends of mine, a couple, but unmarried. "Da man" somehow got a "tip" they were dealing. They were not, not even users, but the tipster had a beef with the dude there. They raided this guys apartment, found nothing. Thoroughly embarrassed, they used a bogus law that was still on the books called "cohabitation" to arrest the couple, they got to spend some time in jail, had to get "bonded" out, LOST the freaking case, and got to pay some medium nasty fine and get a "record".
This was early 70s in massachussetts, BTW.
We need to lose bogus laws, and to my way of thinking, we shouldn't use other bogus laws in order to "get" someone. There usually is something else we can use that has a scosh more "righteousness" to it.. In this case with the spyware, I think there's enough "other" more credible and constituionally closer laws to get them to modify their behavior, most likely inside the fraud or buncoism areas.
or, like I always say..bring back deuling!
heh heh heh
I just heard some sad news on talk radio -- Talk Show host Sean Hannity was found dead in his hotel room last night after a book signing. The coroner has not yet officially ruled it a suicide, but apparently that's what it's going to be ruled.
I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will mourn his passing -- even if you didn't agree with him, there's no denying his contributions to popular culture. Truly an American icon.
The law we *really* need is a law that says for every new law passed, two should be removed from the books.
If I didn't have absolutely NOTHING to do, I wouldn't be here.
Why should I care what an actor says about anything other than acting?
And ironic sig considering a programer is spouting off his views of government.
I think you, and those who have responded to you, are right in the belief that you should have a say in how the country is run. After all, it is (or is supposed to be) a 'of the people, by the people and for the people' and if some of those people want business regulated into playing fair with equipment they own, they should be justified in asking Government to step in and act on their behalf.
Not flaming, just trying to get you to open yourself up to other sides of the debate.
fs
p.s. Actor, Filmmaker, Graphic Designer and (sometimes) Programmer.
It was 100% truth. They still haven't admitted that, yes, regular ol' Native American indians built those mounds. The scam was such that the fake "golden plates" are still hidden. Perhaps they are now badly rusted because Joseph Smith painted regular iron with gold paint.
We won't ever know: the Mormon leaders wisely have kept these plates hidden. They know that they won't stand up to scrutiny.
"Corporations are not people."
Incorrect. Corporations are organizations made up of people.
"Corporations do not have "rights"."
But the people within the corporation have their rights.
"Which article of the Constitution of the United States of America protects the 'right' of a corporation to advertise?"
The Bill of Rights. It does not deny people free speech rights because they happen to belong to an organization.
The Second Amendment is a relic from frontier days and is not needed anymore. We'd best ignore it. In a democracy, the government is the people, and there is no need to fear the government. No one has ANY reason to own an assault rifle or a handgun unless they mean to commit a violent crime. Grow up, put away the toys. Society has passed you by.
Make a law that the EULA is valid only if the user has typed it in word for word to show he accepted it. Otherwise, no install.
;-)
No copy and paste, pressing actual keys.
For a 64-CPU-oracle license, a 58page EULA is no problem - the customer will find an employee that hacks it in if he really wants to run the database.
However, for $19.99 software packages picked up at Walmart, the manufacturer will better come up with a fairly short and concise EULA without any 3-syllable words if he wants to stay in business.
Problem solved - and nobody is denied his constitutional right to make a buck
> So, if someone created a virus that would wreak havok on computers,...
...it would be okay, as long as there was a EULA, for the user to agree to?
Okay. Let's call it "WhenU," just for example.
>
Yes, it is. Lots of things that would be crimes or torts if done without permission are legal when you agree to a contract. For example, picking up your children from school, taking money out of your bank account, and yes, installing keyloggers on your computer. Unlike shrinkwrapped software, "legitimate" spyware such as Gator and WhenU do present a EULA that spells out exactly what said software plans to do. It is up to the user not to be such a fucking idiot. This all boils down to responsibility for one's own system, just like idiot-engineering viruses like the recent Windows variety.
Those who blindly click "OK" and "Next" on anything presented to them deserve far worse than what they get. When will they figure out that the computer isn't a game console? It's just like real life. What you do does affect others, and your own well being. Would you just say "OK" to anything some jackass on the street asked you to do?
Bum: "Hand me your wallet."
Luser: "Okay."
Addict: "That watch you have, can I take it off you and sell it for drug money?"
Luser: "Okay."
Child Molester: "Hey, can I rape your children, too?"
Luser: "Okay."
This kind of spyware makes you wonder if the people that write it actually USE it themselves. I think there should be a requirement to install the shit on their computers and use it day to day, and if they don't, they're not allowed to distribute it any more.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
I've spent many an hour (hey I was getting paid!) to try to block spyware applications on highly used Windows machines. What a major nightmare..... If anyone has any best practices i'm all ears.
Life is so complicated when you let Academics who haven't been outside the Ivory Tower in ten-plus years fuck it up.
so lets all put up a tiny html page listing all the reasons we hate spam
put it up on all sorts of different domains and sites
and then have a open spam list and spam tool full of spam company employee's email addresses
then lets see if they still believe they should have the right to spam
Constitutionally protected right to advertise? I must have missed that one in history class.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
"Constitutionally protected right to advertise? I must have missed that one in history class"
Read the Bill of Rights. Not surprised that they missed this one in history class. It is considered subversive these days.
Listen Bubba ....
... FREE Caller ID!! COOL!!!
To use your example: You have a phone and this guy calls up and says you can have FREE Caller ID if you willing to allow him to log your phone calls. And you say Sure!!! Hey
Then you find out that the guy is using that information to turn some nice coinage at your expense and that of your privacy and you get all pissy about it.
Well you agreed to the contract. Pure and simple. He is providing a service that YOU wanted and is living up to his end of the bargain.
Better yet the contract has an out for you. If you no longer wish the service then you can uninstall the software thus voiding the contract. Simple.
What you are complaining about is the fact that your stupid and people should not be allowed to take advantage of stupid people who decline to read the contracts they agree to. You know the reasoning. Like FREE Caller ID!!! WHAT??? I didn't have a clue!!
Ya! We know!
So UTAH, home of the Jumbo Dumbass apparently, decides to make thyselves a lil ole law regulatin da suckers and the fishin therof. No less than law with GLOBAL implications ya know, but only applicable in the Great State of Utah or the Orfices of the Venerable Orrin Hatch when in Washington of Ofishul State bidness no doubt.
Ya! That'll stand up in court!
Hard to believe your whining about this, after all it is yourself that's to blame. Standing on you lil soapbox in sermon to the world announcing your inability to read or comprehend, if not a manifestation of pure laziness, yet demanding the internet be made safe for you and your ilk of lazy, no account, inbred, illegitimate, illiterates.
Why is it you lowest common denominators always insist that the bar be lowered so you can play too. It just spoils it for the rest of us. We ain't all mental cripples, so why do you insist we all ride the special olympics of internet short bus?
Cause your stupid, that's why!
The difference being that the lone ranger virus writer can hide pretty easily, but put a company with a highly visible public face, and its easy to point a finger or mount an opposition. You can't easily fight something you can't see.
Preferably advertising for a laxative, in the form of direct proof of its effectiveness.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
Why is it that Internet Explorer download/install prompts have an "Always trust [company]" button, but no "Never trust [company]" button? We should all e-mail Microsoft in a (likely futile) concerted effort to change this!
The first user that IS able to sue WhenU and win should donate any and all monies won (minus legal expenses of course) to companies such as PepMK or Lavasoft (the companies that continue to help the IT people fight the growing plague of Spyware). This would be a major blow to any "company" that wants to enlist marketing worthless products to people that don't want to see them in the first place.
Sorry about the rant...
I suppose you could make a case for the A/V scanner detecting spyware and just trying to be really clear about saying "this is spyware, not a virus", but in practice I'm much more comfortable with letting SpyBot handle the spyware and ClamAV or F-Prot handle the A/V work.
Coming soon to Slashdot: meta-meta-moderation!
They do. Check out Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company, 1886.
And for the most part, that is a good thing, not a bad one. Sure you can't discriminate based on race, but what if I could discriminate companies based on your employees race? And they deserve most of the basic rights like protection from illegal search and seizure, right to a trial and so on.
What has been held to a higher standard is commercial speech, otherwise they could use all sorts of false and deceptive marketing. Or well, comparing with the rest of the world, perhaps I should say political speech is held to an incredibly low standard.
In the US, you can state things that in most of Europe would be considered illegal racist speech (think of is as class action libel/slander) or illegal false or deceptive political speech, like Holocaust deniers. But then again the US has never had to deal with it quite like we have.
I can't wait until someone starts claiming 9/11 didn't happen, but was all staged by the US as an excuse to attack the Arab world or some such non-sense. Once you start proclaiming that as "fact", I think you might be in for a vacation in Guantanamo Bay quite soon...
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
OH YES!!! OH YES!! HALLELLUJAH!!
WOOHOO!! now it's costing the spyware companies $$$$ to put their carp on people's computers!!
I am SOOO sick of the spyware companies putting carp on my computer. First it was imesh with their crappy spyware messing my computer. now it's these scumballs foisting adware on spyware on people if they're sucker to land on one of their websites. i've got god knows how much anti-spyware software on my computer to block this carp. Yeah, i have to load my 3-year old computer with more software to stop other software from getting on and controlling my computer that I PAID FOR!!
WOOHOO!! the worm has turned!! the roosters have come home to roost!! Keep it up Utah fuzz!!
* weedshare.com 50% to artists, webjay.org iuma.com CDBaby.com Epitonic.com ampcast.com
They're a service provider that facilitates advertising from other companies. Their method of providing advertising space via customer acceptance of spyware may be on par with other similar services; deceptive at best. But the law is intended to make illegal any software "which monitors Internet activity and sends that information elsewhere". This by no means keeps WhenU from advertising or from continuing to provide advertising space.
WhenU may have certain rights as a result of historical court rulings, not from the Constitution per se. Companies can be restricted from advertising due to changes in state or federal law (eg liquor, tobacco, hopefully lawyers) as long as the law is applied to all companies that provide similar products or services.
m.mmm..myyy
Several crime families recently launched a lawsuit against the Federal Government claiming that the RICO act unfairly targets their business models.
"Eh.. We need to survive too. If we only had one racket, it would too much like actually working for a living."
They claim that the RICO act causes them to have to drop either drug distribution or prostitution from their financial services and sports wagering businesses.
Funny you should mention that. By coincidence, I just got off the phone not two minutes ago with a Telus Mobility customer service rep. You see, this afternoon I got a text message advertisement.
This was extremely disruptive! Here I'm in a meeting, and my bloody phone starts ringing as if our server was down, and it turned out to be a stupid ad.
Ka-CHING! They may now owe you $500. More info here: Telephone Consumer Protection Act
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. - Edmund Burke
The number I've seen is something along the lines of 30% of spam is from compromised machines. We're talking millions to billions of e-mails daily. That's pretty damn visible.
Whenu.Com
264 West 35, New York, NY 10001
You're thinking of copyrighted model building codes. The model codes are copyrighted once fixed in a tangible medium, but once a state enacts them into law, they enter the public domain. Southern Building Code v. Veeck , en banc rehearing.
That would actually be a good thing. Most viruses today don't do much to the person who has the virus, and therefore the user is in no hurry to remove it or patch the hole. If the virus floods their computer with advertisments and slows down their machine, then they would need to switch to Mozilla or Linux to stop the flood of garbage that fills the screen. This would also help to lower the national deficit. Virus writters wouldn't write viruses that DOS servers anymore, because it would be legal, profitable, and much more amusing to write viruses that spread faster and reak havok on people's computers.
Are south Carolinians that sedate that noone else could challeng him?
Because seniority in the Senate is such an effective tool in getting pork projects that benefit the senator's home state passed.
If a government enforces a contract that suppresses the rights of those people, then how is the government not suppressing those rights?
Let's say Cloobie works for an electric company...
Oh wait, that happened last summer.
That explains it!
The Right to Advertise should not be confused with Freedom of Speech. Two vastly different worlds. You have the right to advertise, but it should be by our rules, not yours. Stifling advertisement is very unlikely to stifle freedom of speech. Unless it is written in a way so you can't tell your best buddy about new products, then it's rediculous.
I prefer my spam on toast.
This one will be reviewed by the state supreme court, then get laughed out of there, I gurantee it or your money back!
(I always wanted to say that)
The judges in Utah, particulary Salt Lake City have always been a little on the funny side. I won't hold that agianst them, unless they pull a really stupid stunt like what the 8th Circuit in Cali did with the Pledge of Allegiance case.
First rule of holes; When in one, stop digging.
Thank you for debunking that argument for me. That's precisely my point.
WhenU's not putting a gun to anyone's head! And NO, "Well I hAvE to iNsT4lL KAZAA!" IS NOT a valid excuse. (A) No one is forcing you to choose the FasTrack network for P2P, and (B) even if you do, Kazaa Lite/K-Lite has existed since 2001.
Surfing the internet for about 30 minutes the other day without my firewall and i ended up with this whenUsearch spam all over my computer. Took me ages to get rid of and im glad they are getting sued. Someone installing software on my computer without my permission is clearly violating my rights and im glad to see they are being punished accordingly. alice@ozforces.com
alice@ozforces.com
Broadly interpreted, it means that while you do have a constitutional right to speak, you have no constitutional right to any particular (or general) audience. You do not have the right to be listened to.
you should read everything on the internet as if it had "but I'm probably talking out of my ass" appended to it.
I'm not the one who believes that the Indians were too dumb to have made the burial mounds, so it had to have been Caucasians who did it.
A freind of mine works in a comp. in the it dep. .
... 2 paychecks gone cause' he watched some ads...
They have remote offices connected to the internet using broadband connections but with limited traffic
One guy paid 2 sallaries because he installed some iexplorer bar that was in fact adware , and it downloaded some 2-3Gb over a period of one month , thus going over the limits for the traffic and paying some 10 dollars for 100Mb
Sad
"Uh huh."
When presented with the facts, you utter a grunt that means nothing.
I suggest you study some actual anthropological studies of where the Native Americans came from. Real science, real history. And, for good measure, study actual Native American traditions.
And if, once you know the facts, you still believe stuff about 600 BC Semites being connected to Native American Indians, then, well, I've got a fossil giant to show you (located in Cardiff) and a Piltdown Man skull too. You can also buy my Von Daniken "Chariots of the Gods" collection.
Debunking the "59 Deceits"
Yes you are a Anonymous Coward.
STUPID white people blowing your mouth when you have no idea of Native people. This is the case ever since you got lost and landed here. (By the way your visa has expired. Please leave) you have ALWAYS tried to say we came from somewhere else to lessen you guilt of invading a group of nations and heaping genocide on them in everyway possible. We were here we have always been here. Maybe the Esikmos came across the land bridge but my people didn't. We have our stories of how we got here yet your books call these stories (Our history) myths. Is your Bible a myth? I think so!
My question is how the fuck did you get onto a subject you know nothing about with no relation to spyware, which is the subject of this post.
I can't as a modern Native American believe that white people are still SO stupid to still continue this "Someone else was here first" shit. THE TRUTH IS YOU STOLE, YOU MURDERED, YOU RAPED TO GET THIS LAND!!!
It is estimated that over 300 million Native People lived here BC (Before Columbus) In 1900 there was only 225,000 left and no we didn't get on a space ship and leave. YOUR MURDERED US! (today we are still only 6% of the US population)
It is best to remain quite and have people think you are stupid than to type and remove all doubt
sorry for being so racist but I grow tired of hearing shit like this from people with no idea. (Oh yes you do need to wipe your mouth off you have something brown on it.)
If I were a Mormon, I would tell you that you are deluded, and that your ancestors came over from Israel 2,600 years ago.
Hint: talk to the Mormon. The AC here basically agrees with everything you say.
"It's simple the one doing the taxing taxing takes only from you as much percentage wise as he/they would have took from himself/herself."
And if the guy would gladly tax 90% of his own income, you are screwed.
My research indicates that WhenU does not comply with its privacy policy, in the following sense: It sends to its servers certain URLs that users visit, namely the URLs above which WhenU displays pop-up ads.
Details are in my recent FTC comments, Methods and Effects of Spyware. See paragraphs 12-17.
Ben Edelman
benedelman.org
Sign up for updates via a link on the site.
Ben Edelman
benedelman.org
Norton and McAfee do recognize _some_ strains of adware/spyware, but they don't do jack about it except in some cases of CWS (CoolWebSearch).
Spybot, HijackThis, and CWShredder will always be _far_ better.
Once again, megakudos to Patrick Kolla and Merijn Bellekrom for making those.
Disclaimer: I'm a Helper (trying to make Trusted Advisor) on Spywareinfo.com and a Global Moderator on subratam.org, both of which are spyware removal sites.
Striking fear in the authors of godawful fanfiction, I am here, appearing in darkness, Tuxedo Jack!
I'm aware of the legal precedent, but I wish people would get over the idea that precident is somehow a permanent thing. Judges don't write Laws. They interpret them as they apply to each case. They may use precedent as guidance but precedent is not The Law.
Obviously, a judge would tend to rule in accordance with those courts to which a case could later be appealed, to avoid the hassle of having his/her decisions overturned all the time, but I don't think they're required to do so.
This is not the law of the Medes and the Persians described in the biblical book of Daniel, where rulers make arbitrary pronouncements which are written down to be henceforth and forever binding. The law of this land (US) is written by "legislators" (SURPRISE!) elected by the people, not by the judges.