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Spitzer Sues Intermix Media for Bundling Spyware
CousinLarry writes "Attorney General and corporate watchdog Eliot Spitzer has filed suit against Intermix Software, alleging that the company deviously and deceptively bundles spyware with its 'free' screensaver and game products. 'Spyware and adware are more than an annoyance,' Spitzer said. 'These fraudulent programs foul machines, undermine productivity and in many cases frustrate consumers' efforts to remove them from their computers.'"
While in this case, I'm all for Spitzer, he has at times seemed a little overzealous in his prosecutions.
I wonder if we'll see him seeking higher office in the near future.
I hope that they prosecute them for fraudulent business practices... nothing else really.
If they are prosecuted for frustrating users, and causing machines to perform poorly, woe be unto the poor programmers of the world...
hey.. wait a min, if they did that, then Gill Bates if phuqued!!!
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
As a matter of fact, I once had a run-in with exactly one of those spyware programs that frustrate your efforts to remove it from your computer. Mind you, this wasn't on any of my computers, which are Linux, FreeBSD, or Mac boxes. It was a secretary's computer at work, running Windows XP. Unfortunately, they still haven't listened to me about migrating away from that.
Turns out, this secretary went to some website using Internet Explorer, which we constantly tell people not to use. The site automatically installed some software without her knowledge. The complaint was that her computer was lagging and running significantly slower than normal. I checked the Registry, which should be called the Madnesstry, and found under various Startup locations that there were some ten similar programs running. I deleted all of the associated keys. Turns out, the software installs a daemon that watches the registry and reinstalls the key the instant you remove it. Trying to shut down that daemon or delete the actual EXE files from the computer is a futile effort. The damn thing monitors its own existance in every way that you can imagine.
Finally, I blew everything off the computer, installed Windows from CD, and personally locked down that box as far as you can say that Windows can be locked down, which isn't very far. Internet Explorer is hidden everywhere, and I actually put Internet Explorer icons that simply launch a window that says this computer is not authorized to launch internet explorer. Instead, there is Firefox and Opera to choose from. I also went ahead and created a blacklist of sites from here to Timbuktu. That solved most of the problems.
What did he charge him with, again?
Oh, that's right. Lot's of public attacks, not one indictment yet. That's an ethical prosecutor, isn't it?
Spitzer's an ambitious politician. He's using his position as NY AG to play for higher office.
Seems like Intermix's stock took a hard hit due to this news today.
While those are a major source of spyware and adware, it is hard to avoid problems when you are using public computers at a school. High School kids seem to find emoticon programs, search bars, and mouse pointer software amazing. It's to bad those like to bring along there freinds Alexia, Gator, and Bonzai Buddy.
First off, I'm as happy as everyone else someone is finally going after these scumbags.
But at the risk of casting a dark cloud over the whole affair, Mr. Spitzer is sueing Intermix, not arresting them.
So...anyone know exactly what they're exactly being sued for? "Secretly installing software" is a little vague for a legal charge.
Another question. Why sue? He's the Attorney General. Why not prosecute instead?
So can anyone with some legal insight shed a little light here, so we know how happy to be?
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
You're obviously not making $50 a pop removing spyware from the computers of idiots. No thanks, nanny Spitzer - I prefer to let Darwin sort this out.
Good heavens Miss Sakamoto - you're beautiful!
http://castlecops.com/article-5943-nested-0-0.htm
TIAA-CREF
CALIFORNIA STATE TEACHERS RET SYS
NEW YORK ST TCHR RTRMT
Can't we do something about the people who advertise through spyware? If no one pays the spyware companies, the whole thing falls through. Plus the advertisers might have a reputation to maintain, unlike spyware companies who no one knows about.
Believe me it's not all porn sites and such that dish out the spyware. :) ).
I've cleaned it off machines that got infected because a 12year old Wrastling fan VISITED some 'fan' site.
I watched the re-infection try to happen, his mom had heard the same story it was all from porn sites and figured her son had hit 'that age' (peuberty to ten minutes after death for most of us
To prove to his mom that's not what he was doing he showed us each of the sites he went to. When he hit this fan site the blocker I was using at the time went nuts with about 8 attempts to infect, two of them would have worked without any further action than simply viewing the site in pre-sp2 xp.
These days it's more often the aforementioned smilies and cursors and some simular crap.
Mycroft
https://signup.leagueoflegends.com/?ref=4c3ed6600b6ea
If the companies clean up their act, they wont get labeled "Spyware" anymore.
Steps to take:
1.Make it possible to remove the program 100% without leaving any traces on the system
2.Dont mess with system files (e.g. winsock settings like new.net does)
3.Dont deliberatly hide or obfusicate the processes, dlls and files that belong to the spyware program
4.Be open about what the program does and what it sends back.
and 5.Dont try and get your program installed on a users machine without their permission (installing alongside other software is fine if its clear that installing x program installs y adware too)
I seriously hope this is the first in a long series of lawsuits against companies that pull this kind of shit. FunWebProducts should be the next on the list, I've heard more complaints against their crapware than nearly anything else.
<inflamatory sentence> FunWebProducts, if you don't know, are the makers of those Smiley Central things you see ads for plastered on every site using bottom feeder ad-sales services.</inflamatory sentence>
Aside from being spyware and hard for the average user to remove, their apps also pollute the hell out of my [company's] logs and their toolbar plugin makes corrupt requests to pages we don't even have. The best we can figure is that some mechanism is "guessing" what URLs would be the best for the user. That or it's trying to spider our site following the user's trails.
I admit I have a personal bias in case you couldn't figure that out
R(k)
All files are already stored on a server, which makes the files available to Windows users via Samba. This server runs FreeBSD and never crashes. :-) All user-generated files are supposed to be placed here, and we discourage saving on individual desktops because it's too time consuming to back them up. So they're imaged from the day the OS and the apps are installed, and that's the only desktop backup.
My idea is this: All desktop computers throughout the company would run the Windows OS through a virtualizer. A disk image file would be used for this virtualizer. Everything else would "pass through." And the virtualizer will be configured so that all changes to the disk image would be lost when the machine is shut down. (Or copy a duplicate disk image on top of the one that is being used.) That way, each startup is a fresh one, just like the day the machine's OS was first installed. Spyware? Reboot. Gone. And with a disk image, you can MD5sum it, sign it, and know for a fact that nothing was changed.
As an improvement on that approach, I would design a bootloader that would snatch control after the BIOS but before the OS. It would reset the disk contents to the good known image and then pass control to the OS. You'd think this would take a long time, but I think a basic Windows install with all the apps (remember, the data is on a server) only takes up a few gigs, and that can be restored quickly.
I'm still thinking about both of these approaches. Basically, I'd like to make sure that no matter how a user abuses a system setup, it will always return to the way I want it to be, without my intervention.
Ever wondered why you see so many banners for screensavers wherever you go on the Internet?
These people pour in several hundreds thousand dollars per month into advertisement for "free" screensavers! Even though the cost of acquisition may be up to $2-3 per installation, they can still make a couple of million a month from selling the souls and registration data of the poor gullible old ladies installing these things. Not to mention giving them a healthy does of adware/spyware for additional profit.
Unfortunately, Intermix is not even the worst, there are bigger players on the market. This kind of heavy marketing makes it quite tough for us honest small developers to compete, and it even hurts us by scaring away people who got their fingers burnt already.
Go on Spitzer!
www.oceandive.com
Frankly, "free" means "free". If I gave away a non-computer product, say a t-shirt, if I advertise it as "free", you'd expect it to be actually "free".
If it worked you would not expect that "free" means, buried 6 ft deep in the EULA, that I can come to your house, listen to your phone conversations, shout ads under your windows, switch your TV channels and read your mail. That's just not what "free" means. And if any company tried to pull that stunt, they'd have a fraudulent advertising lawsuit on their hands... or worse.
Yet when it comes to software, you see this kind of crap every day.
And not even just from small time slimeballs. Last time I've bothered installing RealPlayer (years ago, as it just had renamed it to Real One), it acted every bit as annoying as any spyware. It stayed in RAM even when told not to, drowned me in pop-ups even when not using the player, etc.
About time someone sues these idiots and brings back _some_ truth in advertising.
I wouldn't even mind it if they explicitly called it ad-supported-software or whatever. But calling it free, when in fact you have to give them something in exchange (e.g., control over your computer) is just the kind of bullshit that shouldn't have ever been allowed in the first place-
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Actually, I work at the NYS Attorney General's Office. While I can't speak for Mr. Spitzer, I can say that the Legal Technology office that runs the Attorney General's Office network keeps its computers locked tighter than any place I've ever seen.
They use Wake-On-LAN to even control when a computer is booted. Even better, most of their tech support happens without them leaving their office (which is 20 minutes drive away from the actual capitol, I might add). They are definitely an excellent marketing case for Novell and their ZEN Network products. Everything is locked down remotely. I can't install software on my own PC, I can't even see the hard drive or find a DOS prompt. Even better, they lock down the file share so tight you have to fill out 3 forms just to get write access to a shared folder.
It's tougher than hell to get spyware on your computer. And when it does happen, their first reaction is to wipe the computer. That's right, they give you a five-second chance to remove anything from your desktop (you don't even have access to My Documents in Windows; they're reasoning is that you should use the file share instead) and then they just launch the reformat and reimage remotely and in an hour, you have a fresh new install.
Even Internet Explorer and Netscape are managed through Zen so you can't have access to anything until the network is done authenticating. For a bureacracy as large and NY State, I was very surprised to see how well run this place is.
Intermix: Oh, we use only the finest juicy chunks of fresh screen savers, emptied, steamed, flavoured with games, whipped into a personal information manager, and garnished with spyware.
Spitzer: SPYWARE?!?!?
I: Correct.
S: It doesn't say anything here about spyware!
I: Ah, it does, at the bottom of the EULA, after "rights you agree to relinquish".
S: I hardly think that's good enough! I think it's be more appropriate if the box bore a great red label: "WARNING: SPYWARE!!!"
I: Our sales would plummet!
S: (screaming)FUCK your sales! We're here to protect the PUBLIC!
Knight37 - Once a Gamer, Always a Gamer
Don't believe the hype.
Almost every time I see Mr. Spitzer's name in the media I like what I see.
Mr. Spitzer's talent is getting himself in the newspapers. He actually has very little dedication to prosecuting cases for the people, he just appears like it. That's why the NY Press called him The 35th most loathsome New Yorker:
If you explain to someone how to properly use Windows Update (as in not just ignoring that little icon on the bottom right) and yet they still do not do it, it shows signs of lacking intellect, or at the least comprehension skills.
If you explain that downloading flash animations and dinky little games is bad, yet they continue to do so, it implies a lack of understanding if not downright apathy to learn from their mistakes.
If you explain that going to pornographic websites drastically increases the odds of problems occuring, yet they ignore these warnings and press on with their porn perusal, they are a fool.
I am not elite and do not consider my views elitist, I view people that are unwilling to even learn simple things as idiots, if they cannot be troubled to try something then they are not worth the water in their veins.
I'm sick of following my dreams - I'm just going to ask them where they're going and hook up with them later.