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L.L. Bean Suing Competitors For Spyware-Linked Ads
httpamphibio.us writes "According to this article on CNN, L.L. Bean is suing 'Nordstrom and three other companies it alleges used pop-up ads that appeared when some customers visited the clothier and outdoor gear retailer's Web site.' The article mentions Claria Corp, a maker of spyware . This is an interesting route to go about getting rid of spyware, attacking its source of income instead of the manufacturer."
Claria Corp, a maker of spyware
;)
if they hadnt changed their name, it would have just said "the article mentions Gator." but claria needs to have their position reiterated, eh? guess their renaming stragegy worked, since claria is not automatically associated with "bad", as gator was.
I think they may have a pretty good case because as far as I can see the law is pretty vague on this one. They probably have a great chance in a civil court though.
As to how these guys are organised? Just like the mafia only not as romantic and much more irritating.
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
Hey I hate adware tremendously but users have a right to have their browser to behave the way they want. I use a product called Pith Helmet that alters the way content is presented in Safari. Am I going to get sued for that, or the author? LL Bean is stepping over the line. They have no right to tell me what products I can have installed on my PC when I browse their site. If their products are better than their competitors, they shouldn't be afraid of the pop ups. It should provide a level of contrast that makes their products shine.
Damn, I hate siding with Gator on this one...
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
Although I approve of anything that can stem the tide of spyware (and wear LL Bean), I do question the company's grounds for suing. In some ways Claria's popups could be likened to trespassing in an LL Bean store caring a banner for a competing retailer. Yet this analogy suggests that LL Bean (for example) owns the computer of people visiting its site.
I can envisage legitimate services that could be caught by this. For example, I can imagine a service that watches webpages and provides warnings to the user of malware links, scams, etc. Such a service would be effectively outlawed by this precedent. If LL Bean suceeds, then no service or piece of software has any right to process an LL Bean page and trigger any other actions than the ones that LL Bean approves of.
I want to get rid of spyware (although I have yet to see any on my Mac yet) but wonder about the precedent this lawsuit sets and what it means for consumers rights.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Isn't this the same thing as going after google for dsiplaying ads for another company when LL bean's name comes up?
Honestly, we'd probly all be rooting for google in this case.
Just a thought.
About 6 months ago the same thing happened between my company and a competitor. The competitor used the GAIN (Gator) network to get their banner in front of the page when clients were ready to apply for our services. Since the owner of the company I work for happened to be a lawyer he got on the phone with the CEO of the competing company and threatened to start a lawsuit. The competitor backed down immediately and abandoned the GAIN project completely. I don't know what will happen in this scenario but it will be interesting to see what legal grounds they will use.
-- Lincoln to (Col.) William F. Elkins, Nov. 21, 1864.
BytesTemplar.com
The situation you describe is basically what lawyers are for.
There is a big difference between muzzling critics of a company who may or may not have a point about its actions, and, copyright infringement or, as L.L. Bean claims in the suit, another company's hijacking their investment in customer-relations by using spy-ware to pop-up ads for its competition whenever someone tries to visit L.L. Bean's website.
If, as L.L. bean claims in the article, its only use for pop-ups is brief questionaires to its customers, it should have the right to demand that that be the only thing that happens when you visit its website, in much the same way I am able to use my Sprint Cell phone without being forced to hear an ad for another carrier--even though the landlines that carry my call are leased from an affiliate of another cellular provider.
All things being equal, I still like their lawsuit. It's just good sense.
To mail me, remove the 'mailno' from my email addy.
"Yeah. It smells, too..."
How about this? You get your wish and Nordstrom can hire windows from Claria/Gator to pop up obscuring the view of LL Bean shoppers. Fair?
Fine then. LL Bean gets to hire people to send to Nordstrom outlet stores whose job it is to stand between certain people and the merchandise they're looking at, and telling them about all the things they can buy at LL Bean. The customers are allowed to tell the LL Bean employee to "go away", at which point the LL Bean employee must immediately stop talking and move out of the way until the customers decide to look at a different item. Then it repeats. The victims are chosen by a person outside the store, who is asking for signatures for a petition to save little puppies. This person does not mention any affiliation with Nordstrom or LL Bean, but at the very bottom of the petition in fine print is the line "You may be bothered by certain people in certain stores." Neither the document nor the petitioner gives an explanation of "bothered" or a list of "participating" stores.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Ignoring the over-the-top slippery slope argument you made, have you considered that a lot of spyware is designed to look like "updates" and other misleading Windows widgets?
Users click on this stuff thinking they're getting a windows or security update because they are being misled. That's false advertising and that's a serious problem. Do you want to do business with a company that says "hey visit our site" only to find your computer stuffed with spyware because of illegal business dealings? Maybe not you, but perhaps a non-techie you know would fall for it.
The speech argument would hold more water if we weren't already talking about:
1. Illegal activities: false advertising.
2. Speech "rights" of corporations. (commercial speech)
3. Misleading ads and software.
4. Privacy violating software couched in unreadable EULAs.
5. ActiveX installers ready to push any junk on a misconfigured browser.
Number 1 really trumps them all.
Its an illegal activity, and rightly so. Rights are limited when doing illegal things. If we write up a contract for a big herion shipment and I reneg you have no legal recourse because you knew you were doing something illegal with me.
Most companies , given the chance, would love it if spam/popups/whatever worked and didnt irritate the living shit out folks. *however* that does NOT mean the same-said company knows full well it pisses off customers and therefore won't go near it with a ten foot pole.
:-)
I consider myself to be quite an 'anti-corporate' person, in the sense that I think we need to drastically reign in the privilege and influence of corporations in modern society. And the legal anthropomorphization of companies has gone too far, even - and this is the point of my post - to the point where even fellow anti-corporates do it.
'Love'? 'Know'? Come on people this is fuzzy thinking at best. I know it's sometimes just in the interest of simplification, but it leads to over-simplification.
Remember SCO and the antics of its leadership: doesn't make any sense if you think about some mythical 'wants' and 'hates' of SCO itself, since it sounds like some schizophrenic suicidal psychopath. Yet, as soon as you think of certain members of the board, who might want to cash out and let the company sink then it makes sense again.
The same goes with 'good' companies to some extent (i.e. the actions of L.L. Bean now), however that's always when some 'clear-thinking' individual shows up and points out that the company is 'only interested in profit', as if it's patently impossible that anyone in the management might have morals or standards. Or worse there's the implication that -- since the company is just this lumbering raving profit-hungry beast -- it will only ever do something good if it's prodded with the profit stick.
People: companies are abstract *things*... led by people. It's very rarely one single person, and if it is, they are very rarely without some kind of oversight. The only thing the company itself represents behaviorwise is sometimes a certain 'culture' that is common there. But never forget: that culture is a product of the people and their history in the company not some magical aura the permeates the company, which is why if you let enough people go, or change the leadership drastically and/or at many levels the company can transform itself (see IBM -> IBM, or SCO -> SCO, or... anyone remember the original EA? when the 'A' meant something?).
Sorry for the rant. Frankly the parent it far from being the worst at this, but I just wanted to get that off my chest
-chris
San Francisco values: compassion, tolerance, respect, intelligence