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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?
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...
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.
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.
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.
Because, WhenU install our spyware, U Be Screwed! ...and we need to protect that.
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.
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
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!
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...
"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.
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...
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.
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.
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
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.
;)
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.
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
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.
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
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)?
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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'
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.
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
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!
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.
if they maintain the "constitutionally-protected right" to advertise, then i maintain the right to bear arms against fools like this...
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.
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