Utah Sees First Spyware Case

denlin writes "According to a story at The Register: 'Overstock.com is set to become the first company to take action under Utah's new anti-spyware law. The company has filed a complaint against online retailer SmartBargains in the third district court in Salt Lake City. Utah's spyware law, the world's first, only made the statute book on 3 May. Utah is the only state with current spyware legislation, although California and Iowa are considering their own versions of the law.'"

Comments

This might work.

[LPrime]

Patrick Byrne's comments regarding the hijacking of affiliate profits are dead on.

I haven able to gather some interesting statistics about the "Parasitic" methods discussed in the article. The conversion of Visitors to Customer is about .2% of what you would normally get by traditional targeted banner advertising but the cost of the campaign is about 30% of the price. When you consider that in a commercial banner campaign your best hope is a 2% clickthrough (and even that is not that easy anymore) I can't see anyone except the ad companies making any money.

In my humble experience the spyware companies and their affiliates target small startup companies luring them in with the cheap cost of getting new customers. Heck that's how they got me to spend 350$ on a campaign that ran on WhenU. For the money spend I received 0 Customers, 3 Complains and my CC being charged triple that took almost 30 days to resolve. But I receive at least 5 e-mails daily and at least 1 call per week from people advertising this exact same product.

Re:This might work.

[lothar97]

If you had spent $700, you could've had double the spam- and double all your returns (0 customers, 6 complaints, and 6 times the charges on your credit card). If it sounds too good to be true...

This will be interesting...

[Dozix007]

I wonder if they will actually get anywhere. While Spyware is annoying and intrusive, the people who put it on your computer are generally in the right by their agreements. Most people that get spyware are uninformed, and ignorant. If you open unsolisited email, or if you download P2P, and other such software, you will end up with spyware.

Re:This will be interesting...

[lakeesis]

The only problem is that some of the ignorant masses don't actually download the programs causing the banner ads -- they get webjacked into doing so.

Though the "software license agreements" that most adware pushers have people page through seemingly give them the right do produce the pop up ads, this particular lawsuit addresses the end result -- the software equivalent of hiring someone to wear a billboard for your store to stand in the doorway of your nearest competition. Your hireling wouldn't necessarily prevent them from going in, but it annoys the heck out of the consumer, and infringes on the space of your competition.

--

sig: I'm not here right now, or busy. Please leave new sig after the tone.

Re:This will be interesting...

[Jaysyn]

A friend of mine ran Adaware last night & it found 2 tracking cookies, not a huge deal. I tell her to download Spybot & run it, and she found *118* more spyware related files. The moral of the story is use em both if you want to be sure you're clean.

Jaysyn

Proliferation of stupid *ware invented words

[Marxist Hacker 42]

From the article: Patrick Byrne, president of Overstock said: "Pop-up ads have been to Web browsing what spam is to email. Within the world of affiliate marketing, such software is often called 'parasiteware' on the grounds that the companies which distribute such code and those who advertise through it are parasitic on legitimate commerce: spyware hijacks not only consumer spending, but the commissions that would otherwise be paid to legitimate affiliate community"

Ok, I get the idea that spyware is parasitic- but do we really need the cobbled together "parasiteware" to describe it?

A question

[neilcSD]

Here's what I have always wondered - why do merchants say the 1st amendment protect intrusive advertising? Seems to me that if someone doesn't want to hear it, they shouldn't be forced to. Faxers, spammers, all try to hind behind the constitution. I thought the First Amendment only protects free speech, it does not guarantee an audience. Also, it really isn't free speech if it costs people something is it (bandwidth, etc)?

Re:A question

[dbc]

well, yes. and in fact the 1st A. gives broad protections mainly to political speech. you can stand in the park a rail against the mayor all you like. but the protections for commercial speech are *much* more narrow. and yes, forcing you to pay for them to advertise to you is not protected by the 1st A.

Re:A question

[register_ax]

Seems to me that if someone doesn't want to hear it, they shouldn't be forced to.

Also, it really isn't free speech if it costs people something is it (bandwidth, etc)?

True overall, but everything costs someone something. Especially in the day in age where time is just as precious (if not more so) as the green that comes in. Taking a protest to the streets corridors off that section of pavement that you have paid for and costs someone time in detouring. But the issue gets mucky as this is also right to assembly. Now if we detract time altogether and only demand it to be a tangible product, we might see how we might be able to beat 'round this African lilac and escape the issue entirely. Ah, if only simplicity existed and people could show compassion and patience for another. But no, it is about your rights, and your rights require to interfere with other's rights. It just isn't as pen and paper write the laws, which is also why you see an influx of laws and the practice of law in the day in age.

Recently I was reading a press release on some big item having to do with copyright or the like, and one notable CEO or another said that since there are no laws that exist saying you explicitly can, it means you are not able to (sorry, I can't remember where or who, you'll have to take my word for it :)). So if it is not explicitly written they were saying, there's no rights saying you necessarily can do it. I found that highly repulsive as I figured laws existed as restrictions, not being a mode of checking whether or not you can brush your teeth with so and so toothpaste. Extreme I know, but this has everything to do with freedom of speech. OK, maybe I'm pulling freedom of speech into freedom of use, but I think a slow integration of the two is on the rise, where it becomes impossible to even discuss the technology being used as can be readily seen within this era of the DMCA. Companies wish to do away with these rights because it makes everything a lot easier on them ... no lawsuits for poor products, only being able to be enforced by the government that "works" for the people.

It's a quiet emergence I fear the majority is not ready for. But then I can also readily see they will never be ready for it. Interesting to see how things will turn out regardless.

Re:A question

[cpt kangarooski]

I know that there are "NO first amendment rights to advertise" as I am an educated USAian.

I don't think you're even slightly well-educated:

"The First Amendment, as applied to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment, protects commercial speech from unwarranted governmental regulation." Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corp. v. Public Service Commission of New York, 447 U.S. 557 (1980).

However when you say "if it's not expressly forbidden, it's ok to do it" sounds more like Amsterdam to be honest.

Nope -- that's the English tradition.

Quite the law

[bcore]

The article is a bit sparse on detail, but here's a link I dug up: Link.

Quite law, that. I wonder if it will work?

not in the right anymore

[r00t]

Spyware authors may have been "in the right"
prior to this law. Why do you think the law
was passed? :-) An EULA contract is nothing
when it goes against the law.

glad to hear it

[Rick and Roll]

I am glad to hear that the state of Utah has an anti-spyware law. I would like to see my own neighboring state, Arizona, get one.

I run linux and have never had to deal with spyware or adware on my own computer (though I hear one company is using .xpi to add a "search bar" to Mozilla). My parents, however, run Windows. My little sister installs programs from cereal boxes that are full of spyware, and I swear one of those programs caused porn pop-ups to be displayed on my computer.

So what I'm getting at, is that spyware is a huge problem and it's long time someone did something about it! It's just a pity that there hasn't been a government agency or a court brave enough to bring a big judgement against the industry. The fact of the matter is, these programs vandalize people's systems. They are a form of property damage. Plus they expose people to pornographic ads. They break so many laws already. It is too bad that there has to be legislation before someone can make them pay.

While they are filing suit...

[jwcorder]

I want to get on the band wagon and file a suit against Overstock.com! I bought one thing from them and I have been getting bombarded with emails sometimes two or three times a day.

I even tried to opt out of their email list and the onslaught continues. So before they start sueing people they need to examine their in house activites.

Re:While they are filing suit...

[KrispyKringle]

Better yet, check out SpamGourmet. I've seen a few other services come close, but this is the only one I know of that allows you the flexibility to create disposable addresses without logging on (e.g. while standing in line at the cellular phone counter) and restrict what addresses can be created to prevent enterprising spammers from just creating new addresses for you.

You go there and register a name (say, august_zero@spamgourmet.com). Then, whenever you have to give out a displosable address, you make it string.n.august_zero@spamgourmet.com, where string is some unique string you'll use to remember this address and n is an integer ST 1 Far easier.

the wrong direction

[Wellmont]

Doesn't anyone think these should be class action lawsuits started by consumers rather then competitors? This just leaves too much room for overstock to declair advertising practices of their competitor unlawful just to get them out of the picture, not to champion the rights of online consumers. This is almost as corrupt as the idea of Spyware, addware in general! The two cases that have been posted on Slash dot within the last week have been both started by companies who are in direct competition with the plaintifs. This doesn't seem like a revolution where the consumer is taking back his right to accept or reject advertisements it more or less seems like a great way to get rid of competitors who had to resort to unaccepted advertisement methods in order to get an edge on the monopolistic front runner!

Spyware can be a good thing

[Skraut]

Yesterday my boss got his first batch of spyware. When I explained to him what it was and why it needed to be removed he started getting paranoid thinking everyone was tracking him.

He asked me "Why don't you ever have to deal with this crap on your system?"

I dropped a knoppix cd on his desk and simply said "Linux."

PEACE OFFERING - Re:While they are filing suit...

[jonfullmer]

Hello, jwcorder. I'm the Senior Network Engineer at Overstock.com. I was sorry to hear that you're having trouble unsubscribing from our emailing lists. We are continually doing our best to make sure that the only people receiving our e-mails are those that actually want to receive them.

Long story short, if you've unsubscribed via our website, and you are still receiving e-mails (promoting the latest deals), please contact postmaster@overstock.com

As a further peace offering, to be absolutely certain you are no longer bothered by unwanted e-mails (from us), feel free to contact me directly at: jon@overstock.com. I'm offering you this address as a token of my sincerity.

Overstock, as a company, is opposed to SPAM. I, as an engineer and administrator, detest SPAM, so please believe me that I sincerely want to make sure that you're not getting pestered by unwanted e-mails (from us).

This offer stands for any of the rest of you loyal Slashdot readers. Overstock has some great deals to offer you, but if you don't want to hear about them, please let us know (you can unsubscribe on the website, or contact us via either e-mail addresses I've mentioned). Thanks for your patience. I look forward to hearing from you and serving you.

- Jon Fullmer