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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.'"
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!!!
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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.
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.
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
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)
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!
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