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FTC Bars Popup Backdoor Ads
zanderredux was one of several readers to note that the FTC has banned backdoor popups. This is the result of the D Squared case that we've heard a bit about in the past. The case also restricted them from sending IM ads as well.
pizzzzzzost!
Yeah! More government control! This is what we always wanted!
This is really going to negatively affect my sex life. Will the FTC please get out of my bedroom, and keep their laws off my body while they're at it?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
So, will this be as ineffective as the CAN-SPAM act?
If my answers frighten you, stop asking scary questions.
Whats wrong with taking the backdoor route? I know some people that prefer it.
Although marketers regard pop-ups as one of the most effective ways of advertising online, many surfers find them hugely annoying.
potato, potahto.
Free, legal music for iTunes users.
What's a "Backdoor Pop-up?"
Are these guys related to Tenacious-D?
Boxing Equipment Reviews
This would be a victory if it were legitimate businesses that used such tactics, but it tends to be the questionable individuals who use this the most, so it really won't have much impact, I'm afraid.
It gets even worse when you consider the fact that US law has little effect on operations from other countries. So...
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
Well I guess they can't always do bad. Though this won't mean a hoot for international companies who do not reside in the US (or US extradition country) it will at least help stem (for now) this countries pop-up advertisers.
Go FTC (i feel sick now)
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
Evidence:
Every major browser now blocks the web variety (including IE, thanks to XP SP2). Microsoft also finally decided disabling Messenger and adding a firewall to their operating system was a good idea. Pity it took them so long to realise this.
And now, just for good measure, they're illegal too.
I say, good riddance.
I was one of the team leaders on the Windows NT project, in fact my team was in charge of the Messenger service.
Nothing like watching an entire department power cycle their machine because they received
"An error has occured at 0x8000000C. Please reboot your system."
Ads were "an annoyance you have to deal with in a free society," lawyer Anthony J. Dain is quoted as saying.
Bearing in mind that advertising something on the TV or radio and crawling into someone's house through an open window and pinning a flyer on the fridge are not the same thing...
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
We just need to ban marketers themselves.
Free Mac Mini Yeah, it's
My computer is broadcasting an IP address, but without ads how will I be able to stop this?
You insensitive clods! We don't have an FTC....
But seriously, legislation in the US isn't going to stop the worldwide problem of popups and spam. What's needed is better *technical* solutions (like not having loopholes in IM clients for people like D Squared to exploit in the first place.
Although marketers regard pop-ups as one of the most effective ways of advertising online, many surfers find them hugely annoying.
Hmmm, what's the word I'm thinking of... Oh yeah... DUH! What I cannot believe is that marketing people think that popups are effective advertising! The only way they have to measure effectiveness is by click-throughs. Of course, many of these pop-up ads are graphically designed to be so misleading (looking like a window within a window, or a dialog box) that the general public will click the ad accidentally while trying to close it. All these accidental clicks apparently add up to a "successful advertising campaign" in the eyes of a marketing bobblehead.
Now, these guys using the windows messenger service can pop up a window that IS a dialog/messagebox, no matter what browser you use. Doesn't even matter if the browser is running, as long as you're connected to the internet (and running Windows). I'm glad that they're getting slapped.
On a related note, I wonder if Microsoft considered turning off the windows messenger service by default for SP2? Not sure what kinds of apps that would break, but it seems like it would be benefical to the majority of home users.
Urge to post... fading... fading... RISING!... fading... fading... gone.
I've always found it ammusing when you see laws and rules for the Internet based on geographical location. The state of Iowa says that spam is illegal or China won't let you visit pages that bash China for example. We need a more permanant solution, and a common Internet law kind of thing.
I don't know, maybe that's a bad idea too.
You talk better than you fool!
Free speech doesn't allow you to run protection rackets, so why this? It's the same thing, if you think about it: sending popups with a promise to stop if you're paid. The only differences are in degree and scale.
Not that this is going to do anything to prevent people from sending backdoor popups; nothing ever does. However, it does allow people to drop the hammer on those who continue this practice.
Just a question, how do you stop and punish them? Especially if they are in a country that doesn't consent to our laws? "If you outlaw popups/unders, then only outlaws will use em." Does that mean that these adds will fall in the same realm as guns? Will they have to pre-register in order to use them? What if they get a concealed pupunder permit? And will M$ release an addblocking toolbar for messenger? Later
A few things:
"claiming it could send pop-ups to as many as 135,000 internet addresses each hour." Actually D squared = 250,000
A bunch of Tech Stuff
Ads were "an annoyance you have to deal with in a free society," lawyer Anthony J. Dain is quoted as saying."
Just as removal of your kneecaps with a cold chisel is an annoyance you're going to have to deal with shyster.
I hate pop-ups. As far as I'm concerned unless I _specifically_ open up something I don't want it buzzing me. Pop-ups are YOUR code running on MY computer without my authorisation. Under different circumstances that is a good way towards describing a worm.
'Don't worry' said the trees when they saw the axe coming, 'The handle is one of us.'
How am I going to know if I won a 3 free day trip to Hawaii for being the 82,711,365th visitor?
Not to mention X-10 softcore.
Click here for a free picture of an iPod!
I bought my last back door from a pop-up add, and I have to say that its a little ripper.. swinging exit for the minature snaushzer and everything.
What I need now is a match to hang at the front of the house. So I'm just waiting for a decent front-door to popup...
Norman Cook's Ode to Sl
you suck.
Just because you lay down laws againsts certain behaviors doesn't mean the people will obey the said laws. 419 scams, phishing are all illegal in most countries, but that has never stopped any of the scammers...
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
This is a dupe from 10 days ago.
get a fucking clue and read the article. it wasn't a bill.
Creating a law like this is just as effective as putting a sign on your backyard gate saying beware of the dog. It just scares the innocent people away but people will still be breaking laws. The internet is way too large for piracy, spam, kiddy porn to be ended. Of course in no way do I want a big brother situation but it's just something i have observed.
This is a fake victory for the FTC. First, the company (D Squared aka guilty slimeballs) who were doing this merely promissed not to do it again. Well, its a moot point anyway because Microsoft is closing the port/turrning off the service that allowed the ads in the first place. So they won't be able to send the ads anymore regardless of this "settlement". The guilty slimeballs do not have to pay any fines. So the message here is that despite the best efforts (? - not really) of the FTC, D Squared victimized hundreds of thousands of consumers and got away with absolutley no penalty and no admission of guilt. A real victory would have punished D Squared to the point of bankruptcy so as to deter future scum bags from exhotionate "business models"
The enforcement of this will most likely be very.... ineffective, much like CAN-SPAM. Also, since many offenders based outside the U.S. anyway, this won't even apply to them.
What we REALLY need is a law making it legal to hunt do and castrate (preferably with a dull spoon) the people that send all this crap.
censorship devise. talk about having your highly mortgaged .asp being held up buy some glowbull nazi felons? phewww
.conceptional proportions?
.com (froogles) away from the disabled person? talk about phonIE fauxking softwar gangster stock markup FraUD billyonerrors? no 'shares' for that that poor member of the ww'community'?
from a post meaNT to be tietolled:
morons give ok to turn yahoo back on? never mind the already doomed moon/mars/bars/shots.
(score: mynuts won: previously PostBlocked gibberish reposted AGAIN)
is it just us? or is afewotherbig.coms having outages?
not robbIE? but then, the fauxking PostBlock censorship devise still is not working again also.
a real malestrom of
what about those googlers trying to steal the
all is not lost.
consult with/trust in yOUR creators.... keeping us on/in the air since/until forever. see you there?
Now if we could just get spammers to obey the law...that would be progress.
Authority questions you. Return the favor.
devise, are becoming more fact, than rumour?
(Opera doesn't like when you 127.0.0.1 a ad website in your /etc/hosts files; it puts the advertisement URL in the address bar after a (very little) while...)
The only reason advertisers didn't hire someone to follow you around with a bullhorn was the expense. Then the internet was invented, and along with it, the pop-up ad...
if the answer isn't violence, neither is your silence / freedom of expression doesn't make it alright
Requesting clarification of
1 -- It is impossible to stop spam because US laws have no effect on other countries!!
2 -- US patent and copyright laws will stifle all humankind, because they are forced on or become de-facto standards in other countries!!
Please resolve contradiction and continue posting activity.
Thank you.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
indecypherable, even by the ever self-updating eyecon0meter kode.
go back to europe.
you fuck.
Now if they could just get rid of these 30 second pop-up ads that appear on my TV 4 or 5 at a time. Like, I'll be watching a movie, it'll get to a really good part, and then BAM!, 6 pop-ads about feminine products, male enhancement pills, etc.
The worst part is they seem to get more agressive towards the end of the movie. Once I saw like 15 pop-up ads before the cliff hanger ending last scene. When is the FTC going to outlaw this madness!?
Authority questions you. Return the favor.
WinXP SP1a disabled the messenger service by default so the only sufferers left are now the neverpatched and windows 2000 users, SP2 closes this even further
it was an issue but since XPSP1a (about 6mo maybe more ago) it is no longer
What always amazed me is the number of people who got these popups. Normal users, sure, that's understable. But I'd have friends that work in the tech dept getting these things, and complaining to ME about them.
I was even flamed a few times, on various internet forums, because I told people to, "Install a god damned firewall" to block these things. Not because of my tone, but because that obviously wouldn't work.
There are reasons why people use these tactics. There are enough idiots in the world that they work.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
I am very well likely re-stating the obvious here, but so incredible many people think that they're getting web browser popups it's sick.
"According to the FTC, the pop-ups sent by D Squared could appear even when a user was not actively web browsing."
No crap? All that does in the article is confuse the user. At one point in time, because the box is labeled "Messenger", the MSN messenger site said that they were "looking into claims of users using the Messenger Sevice for advertisments." It may still be on there, but I can't find it.
Am I the only one who's annoyed by people's ignorance?
Yeah, and so is my foot in your face, buddy.
Well, there's your precedent for regulating other technology, like say P2P.
The only way that the government could slow down the scams and spam is to punish the people that buy this crap. Stop the flow of money and spam will stop.
I however think that the government should get the hell out of the internet and let free market change thing.
As for the pollution argument, remember that the government is on of the biggest polluters. kind of like having the fox guard the henhouse.
I do not see any difference whatsoever. I didn't request the ad, I wasn't actively using my phone.. This is just another instance of laws trying to catch up to technology and the judge not understanding anything.
It really is one of the fun things in Windows. Here at work, we'd find developers with weak or known sa passwords on desktop sql servers they were running. Use the stored procedure that lets you run command line stuff remotely to do net sends from thier machine hitting on same sex coworkers or to start fights. Watch the fireworks ensue. Now that is entertainment!
Hmmm, what's the word I'm thinking of... Oh yeah... DUH! What I cannot believe is that marketing people think that popups are effective advertising!
I don't think this has any direct pertinence to the article but I just wanted to clarify the distinction between an advertising campaign and a marketing campaign.
An advertising campaign is used to promote awareness of some object or issue. A marketing campaign is used to elicit a (desired) response on the object or issue.
For example, a pop-up for Viagra appears and you close the pop-up turn to your wife and say "I don't need Viagra for the bedroom. They shouldn't waste my bandwidth with pop-ups." I would say as an advertising campaign, it was pretty successful. The company has put Viagra on your mind. As a marketing campaign, you might boycott the product resulting in a failure on the company's part.
In my mind, pop-ups are decent advertising tools. They aren't the best marketing tools but then again, I don't think the use and presentation of pop-ups have been effectively explored.
Hmmm... I think it's time to sit down and work on a business model.
If your computer's unpatchable operating system is so mission critical, you can try running all traffic through an SSL-secured tunnel to a proxy service.
Ads were "an annoyance you have to deal with in a free society," lawyer Anthony J. Dain is quoted as saying.
No.
Ads are an annoyance that you have to deal with in order to receive something else funded by those ads for free or cheaper than it would otherwise cost.
In this case, the pop-up ads were not subsidising anything else for the people that got them. They just appeared unwanted and unexpected. You expect ads on the TV, on the radio, on websites. In return you get free TV, free radio, free websites. What is the consumer gaining from these popup adverts.
Hell, even junk mail probably subsided the postal service, allowing stamps to be made a little cheaper.
The same theory should apply to spam. The recipient is not benefitting from the spam in any way. The spammers aren't subsidising their internet connection. It goes from Win-Win (free service for the consumer and products being presented to people for the company) to Win-Lose (products being presented to people, but nothing in return except a waste of time).
Mr. Goatse sheds a tear
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
The lesson here is that the best solution in a situation like this is to close the goddamn port.
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
Any law that bans those pop up ads is ok to me. I think all pop ups should be banned and the only ads that should be alowed are small banner ads. Limit 2 per page.
---- "Excuse me. Where's the children's gun section?"
"'[Ads are] an annoyance you have to deal with in a free society,' lawyer Anthony J. Dain is quoted as saying."
Unfortunately, so are lawyers.
Any time the government says someone can't send something over a network, my ears perk right up. Usually this is because some ignorant judge somewhere has misunderstood the technology and made a ruling that makes no sense.
Let's look at it from the Advertiser's perspective, as he talks to the so-called Victim:
A: Hey, can I connect to you?
V: Sure. We're connected.
A: Cool. If it's not too much trouble, would you display this popup?
V: Sure thing! There we go!
[pop up]
V: HOLY FUCKING SHIT I'M BEING GODDAMMED ABUSED WHAT THE FUCK I DIDN'T EXPECT THIS HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW! WHAT A COMPLETE BLINDSIDING SURPRISE!
Now I know what you're thinking. You're thinking this is fine for me because I'm an uberhacker and I can turn off this stupid service or set up a firewall or something, but my grandmother who knows jackall about computers is going to be lost.
And here's what I say in response: tough shit for her. She was the one who ran the computer with the open port, and she should have known better. Or, alternatively, Microsoft should have innovated some basic security to disable this other innovative feature.
In any case, some kind of governmental ruling on the matter is the last thing that I want or is even required. It's just going to be abused later when the rulings are further broadened to include all kinds of network clients. I mean, could this ruling eventually lead to the gaim client being outlawed? You scoff, but look at what the DMCA has been used for!
You listen on a port, you accept a connection, you execute requested commands, you deal with the consequences! Government has no part in this!
This would be a victory if ...
... in a straightjacket.
It's not a victory for technology, nor for freedom.
What we have here is an network facility that was implemented badly (ie. without default access controls), and instead of the manufacturers getting their wrists slapped by the user community for inept design, the courts are brought in and it's turned into yet another thing for the state to regulate.
It happens to be an MS problem in this case, but the issue is of much wider concern. You really don't want the state brought in when the problem is just a symptom arising from a technical fault. If you do, pretty soon the nanny state is tucking you up in bed every night
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
That with the PC, they are running code that I would not chose to allow to run. Code, not data. In TV land the commercial is DATA. My TV is not changed afterwards. Also, it is well known where these commercials are, they are not trying to hide from me. I go to them *if I choose*, knowing what is coming, and I am free to avoid them *if I choose*. By and large, these popups do not afford me this choice.
.popup TLD, so I can tell before I click the link, and you have a valid point.
Make it so that web sites that have popups have a
emt 377 emt 4
Has anyone else noticed that humans get "3 strikes and you're out", "preventive detention", and various other ruthless criminal treatment, while corporations, with greater power to damage the public, get "monitored", and settle their suits with no precedent or remedies?
--
make install -not war
Most people view their computers with the same regard they have for their refridgerators and microwaves. You turn it on and you press the buttons. Not only should they not have to think about it, it would never even occur to the average person to do so.
OS's should ship set to auto-update, and people smart enough to not like that can turn it off.
paintball
Bearing in mind that advertising something on the TV or radio and crawling into someone's house through an open window and pinning a flyer on the fridge are not the same thing...
If you crawl into their house, you might actually get a cookie.
paintball
Yeah, because the best way to "protect consumers" is to fine a company into oblivion for something that's legal. You heard me. Legal. Morally responsible? Probably not, depending on who you speak to. But legal. I'd hate to see any sort of precedent set where the government can say "ok, now that we've made $action illegal, let's go retroactively apply fines to everyone who did it last year."
do not read this line twice.
in order to avoid all situations where a person might get frustrated that their own computer won't let them do something.
Work for more than 5 minutes without receiving a popup?
paintball
A friend of mine pointed out a case in which a pop-up/pop-under/pop-whatever redirected IE to a "legit" advertiser's site. No biggie. What was a problem was that the advertiser's site had been hacked and had some bit of malware on it, which installed bad stuff (bank info logger) on the user's computer.
Isn't that a bitch? Who's liable in this case? Mom's surfing the web, gets a pop-up, ho-hum, and winds up with her bank account drained because of spyware. Perhaps some civil litigation could be used against the pop-up providers or websites. If Ford and Firestone are sued when their vehicle/tire combination flips you upside down at 60MPH, why aren't websites and pop-up vendors sued when they lead IE users to spyware? (Yes, I understand that I pay for Ford/Firestone and don't pay for CNN... Still...)
--- Dregs
Are you old enough ro be out of the creche and roaming the real Internet?
Best,
Mal the Elder
After all this time, I can't believe that the gummint hasn't figured that going after the PopUp merchants is a mugs game.
Go after the viagra retailers, fine them ten times what it would cost to print an ad, leave it to the local jurisdiction to collect, and they'll be gone in a day.
Destroy the market. Don't waste time and energy on the people trying to make a buck from it. Destroy the market...
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
As usual, in spite of the headline implying that the FTC took decisive action, this does basically nothing. Look at what was actually agreed to. The perpetrators agree that "We didn't do anything wrong and we promise not to again, either".
This kind of things doesn't discourage the practice; exactly the opposite in that it shows there is no penalty for it.
As others have noticed, the practice is much more discouraged by the fact that so many people are now closing that loophole. But the FTC action achieved nothing.
Ads were "an annoyance you have to deal with in a free society," lawyer Anthony J. Dain is quoted as saying.
So, if I walk into a courtroom during this lawyer's next litigation and start shouting out an advertisement for something, the judge is going to see it as "an annoyance you have to deal with in a free society". I don't think so.
So billboards subsidize... what exactly?
Or for that matter, the ads that wallpaper telephone poles? And empty buildings? The banners pulled along by airplanes at the beach? Sidewalk chalk? Or the 1-800-get-junk signs stuck into the ground at every available point?
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
You said:
Advertisements may be a form of "speech" protected by our amendments (and I agree with you there), and paid for to promote products on television but our computers are more interactive than a remote control and for a variety of reasons.
However, computers are like our homes. You should not just walk on in and post a message on my couch, refrigerator, nightstand or bathroom mirror. They are personal, just like our homes, arranged to be just like we want them and left that way. The naivete of most computer users equals that of a new home owner, but on a longer time line. they don't know how to protect themselves all the time, or perhaps at all in the correct ways (barring the illusion of security) and it's up to many people to have some ethics not to violate others privacy, rights to a secure home (or computer) etc.
So if you know someone that' being violated, don't complain about the perpetrator(s). fix their problem and warn them about those said perpetrator(s) and tell them how to protect themselves.
OK, so they addressed Popups and Popunders. But what about those %@&# Flash ads that are atarting to appear everywhere? You know, the ones that overlay the open window and play fancy animation, music, and dialog?
I find these types of ads even more intrusive because in many cases, you have to sit through the animation and other crap BEFORE the "close" button even appears. Reminds me of being "forced" to watch certain segments on the newer DVDs. And then, because these ads don't adhere to any UI standards, the "close" button is often hard to find. Whoever came up with these nasties should be teken out and immediatly shot.
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
Moron.
What the fuck do we look like? Your fucking research bitch? Go to Google & try to answer your own fucking questions, Jackass.
And, no, I'm not Paul. But now I see why he talked to you the way he did.
They're still doing it. I guess Time/Warner is still mightier than the law. But I just went to CNN, and BAM! a big fat pop-under. Wonder if they'll be compliant any time soon? (NOTE: it ain't spyware causing this, it's actual code on the CNN.com site-- turn off popup blockers and try it, it's fun!). Hey, let's all file a complaint!
did you win a free ipod? build a case for it here
I realize that this is going to be a really unpopular view, but hear me out.
My argument is that we institute legal processes to fix things only when we cannot fix them otherwise. For example, we have no way of keeping people from burning people's houses down, so we have the crime of "arson". If there was a simple spray for a house that made everything completely non-flammable, there'd be no reason to introduce the complexity and overhead of legalities.
The problem is that this is not an insoluable technical problem. (I don't think that *spam* is an insoluable technical problem either, but at least it's *harder* to solve.) It is very, very easy to stop boxes from ever popping up. Microsoft screwed up, and it'd be easy for them to provide a download from Windows Update that disables the Messenger service. Instead, they've chosen not to do so. This is an easy, easy fix. If people's computers were being *compromised* (so that by the time Microsoft's update came in, the computer was already controlled by a hacker, and nothing could be done), there would be a different issue. Pop-ups? Just disable the damned thing.
The same goes for instant messenger messages (though to a lesser extent). It is *extremely* difficult to try to slip ads past our existing messaging services, which are both (a) centralized, and (b) unencrypted. If IP Foo using account Bar is sending messages to a thousand different people in a day, something is very clearly quite dubious about that person.
I really, really, really do not think that the FTC should get involved. I can understand people being pissed off, but the person to be pissed off at is Microsoft in the case of Windows Messenger and the instant message provider in the case of the instant messaging. One of the fundamental things that you have to do when you design a system is make it reasonably unpromising to abusers. That was not done in either case. It's not something that requires intervention from the FTC (unless they want to make a statement about how people should complain to Microsoft/whatever instant messaging company is involved).
I could even see the FTC working with the industry to try to set up a mechanism for identifying people using their software that requires updates and notifying those people. But trying to stop advertising by going after one company at a time is pointless, and a waste of my tax dollars.
May we never see th
Is this a play on "I'm your back door lover"?
Hilarious!
There seems to be some misunderstanding in this thread.
Please note that we are talking about the messenger service running under Windows, not the Windows Messenger IM program or web browser popup windows.
Apparently, the President has issued a comment on Hubble maintenance. He stated:
"As part of my commitment to manned space flight, I have decided that the Hubble Space Telescope will now be know as the Hubble Space Station. We are going to send a man up to live in there. I know there's not much room, so we're looking for a small person -- a midget, or maybe a jockey."
Flash ads are the new obnoxious method. Of course they aren't exactly new. I've been seeing them for at least a few years. I think now that IE has the built-in popup blocker, we'll be seeing more and more of them, and unlike normal popup windows, they don't have to have a close button. I for one will not enjoy having to watch a full commerical in flash everytime I view a page.
It's scary being a Flash and Flex developer on Slashdot. You guys are unnaturally rabid.
Sounds like something the Ancient left behind and got incorporated by Microsoft.
standard size horizontal banner ads are the single most inginious form of internet advertising, except, of course, for the strobing *you are a winner* ads. But Mozilla can take care of those pretty easy. If there were only banner ads, it would be so much better.
"In America, you can always find a party. In Russia, party always finds you."
It's comments like this that make me long for a "Weird, +0" moderation option. :)
How many non-geeky types used USENET though, as opposed to the regulars who use email, IM, etc.
The messenger server spam is a little different than email SPAM, as it's slightly easier to track as well. Email SPAM will likely be around for awhile, but eventually the profit levels should drop enough to make it dwindle - though this will probably take several years.
US gov't might not be able to do much to them out of country. However, if the spammers can be identified then they'll pay for it if they ever travel through the US.
I just installed XP SP2 on a client's XP Home machine. The FIRST WORDS out of his mouth before I even told him what I was going to do were "Well, I hope it doesn't make it any harder to use that damned computer. It took me long enough to figure it out as it is now..." and other related expressions of exasperation.
I can't wait (actually I can) to hear from him when the first SP2 pop-up question asks for permission to do something.
It is users like this that M$ sought to appease. M$ would rather open the thing up as wide as a 2 dollar whore rather than have millions of idiot lusers calling up their tech support lines asking how to answer the latest security question dialog.
Now M$ sees the egg on their face from the many security breaches as a bigger and growing problem, thus we have SP2 now. Expect the complaints from lusers over the coming months to increase exponentially.
Maybe this is the big chance for you linux sycophants to swoop down on unsuspecting Windoze lusers and lure them over?
slashdot: A failed experiment.
Benificial or not, how the hell is this even their jursdiction? Their regulating someone's technology, if you don't like it, don't install the farking software or use stuff that works with it. This is insane.
Secure IE against ActiveX/JavaScript/VBScript/IFRAME exploits
Stop the 'unblockable' Messenger service
To further minimize the possibility of malware invading your system, use antivirus and firewall products. I use:
AVG antivirus by Grisoft.
Sysclean by Trend Micro
Outpost Firewall by Agnitum.
Filter spam/malware out of your email. I use CF13-POP3(TM). It is a freeware program I wrote to crush the email spam/malware menace. It is very effective.
A companion shareware program I wrote at the above URL is an all-in-one software mail server that makes it pratically impossible to accept and deliver email spam/malware.
*cough* mark of the beast *cough*
Revelation 13:16-17
He required everyone--great and small, rich and poor, slave and free--to be given a mark on the right hand or on the forehead. No one could buy or sell anything without that mark, which was either the name of the beast or the number representing his name.
It isn't too hard to imagine that over the course of 10 years, 3 BS lawsuits could be brought against a company. The cases have no merit, but are settled out of court because it would be more expensive to fight them (happens all the time). If those settlements were over $1 million, bam, the company is dead.
For purposes of this title,"major violation of law" means the intentional or grossly negligent violation of any federal, state or local law in the United States that results in the imposition against the corporation of a fine, civil penalty, restitution, damages, or other monetary payment of at least one million dollars ($1,000,000) or results in the death of a person.
You have a company that manufacturers fighter jets... In the course of 10 years, you lose two test pilots and one person to a slip and fall accident. This company is now dead in California.
I am obviously not a lawyer or lawmaker, but if I can come up with these two scenarios where reponsible companies can be targeted and 'killed', I'm sure real lawyers could think of a 1,000 ways to get rid of companies that have environmental or political policies they don't like. Oh yeah, every cigarette company would be banned too.
Hell, there are no rules here. We're trying to accomplish something. - Thomas Edison
I like your idea! I'm already thinking very carefully about every negative moderation that I metamoderate, with this exact problem in mind. I would personally have modded that tip +1, funny, had I the mod points; I just don't get some mods sometimes!
Cheers!
Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.
-- Terry Pratchett, Hogfather