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Adware Related To Web Sites Ruled Legal
Cobb writes "The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled that it is legal for adware programs to show you pop ups for knock-offs and rivals when you visit a companies website. 'In 1-800 Contacts's lawsuit against adware provider WhenU.com, the appeals court likened WhenU's ads to retail stores that place generic competitors next to brand-name products.'"
But it had an annoying pop-up, so I left without RTFA.
How could it be illegal if the servers are in Europe or something?
the Political Inquirer
If it's installed itself without my consent, then it's going bye-bye the next time I run ad-aware, Spybot and Hi-Jack this.
Oh? You would prefer a ruling that made it illegal for you to control how and what content is displayed on your computer?
Legal precedent, Zonk. We don't get to choose our litigants, just the legal principles we'd like to see enthroned.
"the appeals court likened WhenU's ads to retail stores that place generic competitors next to brand-name products."
More like putting generic competitors in front of brand name products preventing you from reaching the product you want until you move the competing product aside.
Really, if come company really wants to get me to dislike them and not buy their product, just put annoying pop-ups on my screen in front of what I was looking at. Pissing me off really makes me want to buy something
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
It's more like me going into a shop and standing by a counter and offering better prices to the customers in that shop. I'm sure I'd get chucked out by security pretty quickly.
Do the users know they're getting this adware junk on their machines? If the adware was installed without the user's informed consent, then this is the problem. What the adware is actually doing on the computer is less of a problem. Who knows, maybe some users WANT competitive comparisons to pop up. Think of what a Froogle Toolbar widget would be like.
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The way I see it, ads are ads (unless they are text ads). I'm going to block them all anyways, so it doesn't matter what's in them.
If you do business in the US then you are obliged to abide by US law. Since they are selling advertising to US companies, they are doing business in the US.
I notice that the case didn't address the legality of adware being installed without a user's full knowledge. I find it humorous, but I have an idea!
They can inform the user that adware is being installed with a pop-up! Everybody reads pop-ups!
Perfecting Discordia
www.stevenvansickle.com
Great - another annoyance sentenced legal! Will stupidity never end?
Please don't destroy my last illusions of hope.
Non-supporter of Online Activation and any other draconian DRM
I'm now about to visit the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and stick a big poster over their front door reading "For cut-price justice which is just as good, why don't you use the 3rd. U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals instead? Our charges are only half as high, but our court officials are just as supercilious and our judgements just as incomprehensible. Why don't you book your appeal with us to-day? American Express and bullion accepted.
And then I'm off to see how long I last parading up and down outside WalMart with a sandwich board advertising our local deli.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
I should not have to dig through an install list to see if there is *anything* hidden in there. Especially anything that dials home and tells on me. If I'm downloading X, all I want is X. Period.
Screw thinking that trademark infringement is shitty- Installing a program secretely and going to great lengths to make it a bitch to remove, now that is shitty!
The court didn't have a lot of choice. WhenU was saying that the user authorized the software and it's the user's computer to do what they want. We all know intuitively that's bullshit, but the court needs evidence. If 1-800-Contacts didn't provide (enough) evidence of users having WhenU on their system without knowledge or consent then the ruling pretty much had to be for WhenU.
'In 1-800 Contacts's lawsuit against adware provider WhenU.com, the appeals court likened WhenU's ads to retail stores that place generic competitors next to brand-name products.'
That's bull. Ads for a competitor produced by a 3rd party on any site is more like walking into a Burger King and seeing McDonalds ads plastered all over. In the physical world, managers have the power to deny any 3rd party advertising on their premesis, and can remove any posters/flyers/whatever not explicitly approved from their property. Why is cyberspace any different? WhenU is a 3rd party, hired by a competitor to produce advertising when users enter a target site. Said site has no defense, or no method of blocking/taking down the ads, as the pop-ups are generated client side. How does that make any sort of logical sense- that anyone can advertise whatever they want as a pop-up on any given site?
Generally, when I visit a particular company's website, I'm interested in that company's products, not alternatives or knock-offs. If I were looking for "similar" products, I'd hit a search engine and search for "generic product X" rather than "brand name product X."
When a piece of adware decides to popup an ad isn't the concern of the majority of people, its the fact that it's on the machine in the first place. How it got there should be the focus of legality, not whether it shows an ad for McAfee when visiting Symantecs website.
What a sour analogy. I see it more like a retial store placing their generic items IN SOMEONE ELSES STORE. I work for a business that sells products online, and we have had customers complain to us becuase our website has hyperlinks to our competing websites (placed there by malware).
I don't think they understood the mechanism at work here! It's more likened to WalMart placing their generic products on K-marts shelves!
I want to use WhenU to generate revenues.
1. Most people are blocking pop-ups.
2. Law says a competitor's ad can pop up over my product.
It will then be time to find another way to generate revenues.
Buh-bye WhenU!
As a publisher, this really can hurt the little bit of income my sites create. this will force me to change the code on my site to break this type of software.
Also this forces me to do something that I wanted to do along time ago, make a page that states they have spy-ware with the simple to read and print instruction to do the removal.
the battle has begun, I hope that publishers win, since if we loose, you might see the creation on small pay as you go sites (no more free content)
if you see me, smile and say hello.
What it means is that when someone's malicious software directs you to a competitor's site, that's no worse than having that software on board in the first place.
This could actually be good, because it may help when companies try and use similar law to deflect criticism and commentary.
Pop-ups and spyware suck, but do you really want a precedent that says that programs running on your computer should be altered by what ADVERTISEMENT you happen to be watching?
In related news, the district court ruled that it is legal for the Mafia to use competing brands in their extortion efforts. A store owner complained that the local mafia was using Glock guns to threaten him when his store was selling Magnums. The store owner complained that it was not fair that his assailants were advertising competing products.
The judge stated that "It does not violate trademark law to use competing products during an extortion effort." He added that this ruling does not make extortion legal, it merely states that the brand names of the products is not relevant.
Just because the operation of the adware program is legal in a technical legal sense, that doesn't make the process by which it got there legal, and certainly not right in a moral sense.
It is my fond hope that all the adware companies, spammers, search engine optimizers, and other such trolls of online business burn slowly and long over fires built of their own avarice at stakes driven into the putrid muck in a special part of hell.
sigs, as if you care.
Lawyer will pounce on any grey area. A broad characterization of popup ad could include the "About" information in most legitimate software, or even the graphics commonly displayed at load time. If you want to split hairs in a courtroom, a lawyer could make the case that such information is an ad, and file harassing laysuits against software companies over the inclusion of such information.
the appeals court likened WhenU's ads to retail stores that place generic competitors next to brand-name products.
No, I would liken it to a retailer employee taking a generic competitor's product off the shelf and pushing it into my face while I'm looking at the name brand thing. If you want to be like the generic product sitting next to the brand-name, then make the add on the page, next to it, not pop-up, forcing you to close the window to continue with your shopping.
And they said zombies weren't real!
It's nothing like a store selling name brand product's it doesn't make and selling a generic brand it does or doesn't make along side it. It's like going to a Eddie Bauer Outlet and selling Faded Glory jeans in front of the door. With the exception of retail outlets, A brick&mortar store makes it's money on selling products regardless of brand. Regardless of actual product, but of course most stores try to specialize (not since the days of the General Store that cowboy boots and eggs are sold in the same store). It's in the store's best interest to sell name brands because some people buy by brand, and name brands get people into the store. And it's equally in the store's best interest to sell a generic brand because they make higher margins on those sales. But BestBuy obviously isn't going to let CompUSA put products on BestBuy shelves and sell them right inside the store.
Free MacMini
So you are saying that when I visit www.burgerking.com, the window is property of Burger King?
If I change the size of the fonts, disable javascript, block some images, or anything else to fiddle with the layout of the website, it is tantamount to me going into a local Burger King and ripping out the booths and tables?
I can understand the point of view if the person's computer was infected with spyware without the user's permission or knowledge, but your argument is silly. You as basically saying its criminal for me to change how I view a website from the web master's expectations of how it should look.
Yeah that really seems to stop companies from offering products/services that are illegal in the US. How would you explain gambling sites that have US customers while their operations are outside the States to avoid prosecution. Sure law enforcement would like to arrest them and shut them down, but thats kind of hard if their operations are in a country that doesn't care about US laws or their relations with the US government.
Hey. News. It's legal. You can go to WalMart, and so long as you *aren't on their land*, you're allowed to advertise for whatever you want. Outside the parking lot, put up a big sign for your local deli. Or the KKK. Or the ACLU. Or whatever you'd like.
Since Adware doesn't directly affect the content of the website, there's very little difference. If you wanted to purchase the land around every WalMart for specifically advertising to the group of WalMart visiting consumers, you could do that. That's what Adware does. It does it a little more sneakily - by advertising to visitors of a website usually without the visitor's "approval" - but then, how often do you really approve advertising in the real world?
The ruling makes sense. Adware companies, so long as they are legal, should be able to use data to target ads.
That all being said, I think Adware companies are just about the most awful thing on earth from a consumer's standpoint (if only because they make the internet an awful ugly place). I'm not so sure that adware should be legal in the first place. But if it is, I don't see any problem with these methods. They're smart, and they work. Annoying, but they work.
They could always prosecute the users, but that's probably not considered to be in the public interest. It would be punishing the victim after all. If a corporation is buying services from a company that's doing something known to be illegal, then the corporation is also committing an offence.
Just make a popup that popups over the popup:)
Here's how to get a ruling against adware: Sue them for infringing on Amazon's patent.
I'm sure Amazon has a patent for popup ads. The idea is so simple and obvious, Amazon must have a patent.
Terrorists can't threaten a country's freedom and democracy. Only lawmakers and voters can do that.
That's not the case. Mr. Quixly has a right to throw Mr. Shmoe out of his store, just like Contacts has the right to take WhenU advertising off of their server. But Mr. Shmoe can stand just outside the store and hand out any material he wants [he can even get a group of people to walk in front of the entrance of the store, barring entry!], and Mr. Quixly can hardly do a think about it.
That's the parallel. Quixley can't change what happens to his consumers just outside of his stores, because Shmoe has free speech to advertise.
We're always hearing about "offshore servers" which aren't bound by US law, so otherwise illegal transactions can be processed by them. But where is this mystical "offshore"? Most countries are also signatories to the "mother" WTP/WIPO treaties, of which the DMCA is merely the US implementation. Certainly most countries with Internet data centers, trained sysadmins, electricity... Where is this "Interzone", where, say, US copyright laws like DMCA can't be enforced, but people run Linux on P4s with >1000GB:mo bandwidth for <$200:mo, without having to sacrifice a goat to the CPU god every Tuesday?
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make install -not war
the appeals court likened WhenU's ads to retail stores that place generic competitors next to brand-name products.
I understand the point. But MANY ad-ware applications throw up ads that purposefully hide close buttons or cover up the entire screen making it difficult to shut down the ad. This is tantamount to a store's competitor blocking a customer's entry simply by throwing their body in front the door! Would that be okay, too?
If Nalgene water bottles are outlawed, only outlaws will have Nalgene water bottles.
is it illegal to place generic products next to brand name ones? Isn't that what happens in the cereal isle of every supermaket in the country?
useless sig advice - Read Nabokov.
So now that we've got this ruling, does this mean that we can bring back third voice?
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Very bad!
In fact, overall this has been a very bad couple of weeks for the U.S. Courts.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
That's like saying "once the gunman had sneaked into your house and hid in the basement for a week, it was legal for them to point their gun at you and demand you shop at Wal-Mart". How can the court allow them to hijack your computer to do anything, including popup ads, that is a secret feature you never agreed to run, that you'd remove if you could? That you usually can't even detect which program is doing it, that evades both standard and crafty uninstallers?
No, the court is applying the current American jurisprudence ideology: corporations can do what their directors want, and humans can't do anything about it.
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make install -not war
For starters, it could be illegal in Europe.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
In order to present ads related to the current website, the program needs to spy on the user's surfing. Is this spying legal?
Terrorists can't threaten a country's freedom and democracy. Only lawmakers and voters can do that.
Funny how that stance doesnt seem to apply to Google et al when they are taken to court outside the US.
...I own my computer, and my monitor. So what pops over, under, or to the side of anybody's website is not the concern of the website owner. Not even a little bit. They do not own that space in any way, shape, or form. Nobody is using their servers to send this crap to me. So it does not involve them.
For all we know, there is some jackass, somewhere, who actually knowingly installs spyware and malware, because he likes what it does. He wants ads for other sites popping up over what he's looking at. And he has the right to allow that to happen.
The actual actions that most spyware or adware programs take is NOT the concern of the courts. It's how they get there. Was the user really aware that this program was installed? Nothing aside from that really matters.
Crapware needs to be attacked for what is IS, not what it actually DOES. That's like complaining not because somebody broke into your house, but because they left footprints while they were there.
Now, spyware which installs itself on your computer and changes pages for you/displays ads is bad. But it would be terrible if we got a ruling saying that people aren't allowed to decide how pages display in their own browser.
If someone installs a piece of software and they are well aware of the fact that it will replace ads on web pages, then fine! It's up to the user.
What we need to deal with is software which tricks the user into installing ot, or which installs itself through the use of security flaws and similar things.
Also, replacing ads on sites is nothing like McDonald's replacing Burger King's posters with their own in a Burger King restaurant. Burger King is Burger King's property, remember? Like the browser on your PC is under your control? I would be more like McDonald's giving you glasses that detect Burger King posters and replace them with McDonald's posters in the display in front of your own eyes. In a way, at least :) You chose to put those glasses on, and Burger King has no say in what you choose to look at.
Clever signature text goes here.
There are a lot of spurious comparisons being made here to brick and mortar stores -- basically, "This is as if Burger King went in and put ads up all over a McDonald's." But that comparison is only true if the website owner has some kind of claim to your system.
Think for a moment about where that ruling would take you. For one thing, take that pop-up blocker off your system.
As I said in an anonymous post earlier, you don't get to choose the litigant, just the legal principle you wish enshrined. In this case: bad litigant, good outcome.
This ruling supports the principle that people can do what they want with their own desktop, even if it covers up someone's advertising.
Today it's an evil adware company. But tomorrow, it could be the AdBlock project.
Don't lose sight of the forest for the trees.
The trademark issue is significant. But my freedom to do what I want with my computer is more important.
To me, this is something of a victory - it says nothing about the legality of malware/spyware (how the adware gets on your machine). However, it does enshrine in law your right to modify how content is displayed once it hits your machine.
Basically, the decision says "it is legal to privately modify the content of a website for your own viewing pleasure". Think of this a a protective legal precedent for screenscraping, GreaseMonkey, etc, etc, etc.
Now, we know that adware is usually installed without educated user permission, but that's an entirely different case. We've been given the permission to (at least privately) modify/remix/mash-up content. Now all we need is to make covertly installing adware against the law and the law will have at last got this/these issue(s) right.
Everything in moderation, including moderation itself
This case sounds awfully similar to the two previous cases against google.
Google won the first one against Geico, but it looks like the case against AXA hasn't been decided yet.
I wonder if this ruling will help Google in that second case. Even if Google is in the right, this could be a tough case for them, because AXA has a lot more money than they do. (Google's revenue for a year is about 5 billion dollars ( revenues of $1.256 billion for the first quarter of 2005. AXA's revenue for 2004 was 72 billion euros.
Computers don't make mistakes. What they do, they do on purpose.
I love how it was worded, the comparison. If I wanted to be a smartass I could think, if an item from a store just happens to stick itself onto me... I can walk out of it.. and it's legal? Wishful thinking. Last time I went into a store and a knockoff or something was trying to sell me something I wanted, it didn't follow me home and harass me about it.....
This is probably why people want to colonise the moon ;)
Me (Blog)
As i see it this has nothing to do with the site that has popup's being shown on it.
Just as is i could choose to switch of the site background color in MY browser, or open a second browser window showing a competitors site, or setup a sript to popup a window saying "Armidillo" whenever i open a webpage. Then this is purly my choice as it is my computer.
Now if i have willingly installed some software that does the same thing, or opens some popup advert, again MY computer, i can do what i want.
This is in effect what i see this ruling as.
Now the issue of whether the user has really given informed concent for this particular piece of software may be a completely different issue, and outside this ruleing (after all was in the eula oyou agreed to, however dubious asuch a thing may be).
For the analogies being used, if i want to wear a hat that whenever i look at a a house of a judge detects it, an card or heald out before my eye saying "American Justice Sucks", purly my choice as it only affect me, and i can choosen to install that hat on my head.....
Yes it does. Google have two choices - Abide by European law, or don't do business in Europe. I've always held this view.
Offshore servers are pretty useless. If you're transmitting to the US you can be held to answer in a US court. Regardless of where your server might happen to be, if you have assets in the US banking system, they can be siezed. Likewise, if you set foot in the US, you can be arrested. Courts take a very broad view of their jurisdiction.
In any event, regardless of where the servers might be, the courts interpretation of trademark law is correct. Despite some of the implications, this is still a good thing.
bance.net
I have read many people comparing this to competitors putting their products up in their competitors stores. I don't read the issue that way. Since whether or not the adware should be on the machine in the first place is not being discussed here (an issue for another time) we must assume that, for the purposes of this case, the software is there correctly (Ie. the user really wanted it there). Going with that assumption (no matter how poor an assumption we feel it is) then the behaviour is more analgous to the shopper bringing along a newspaper ad and comparing prices themselves. It is just comparison shopping using technology.
Now realistically speaking, that is taking it too far. Who is gonna buy a boat and satellite dish to have a Warez site hosted with popups?
But the idea still exists.
This ruling is only about the trademark law involved with linking competitor products to a specific brand name. Like having ads for Acme Tissues triggered by kleenex.com, or ads for Bland Cola triggered at pepsi.com.
This ruling has absolutely nothing to do with the legality of adware in general, or with software being installed without the user's permission. Assuming WhenU was deliberately installed by the user, this ruling clarifies that it's acceptable for WhenU to show ads for other contact places, triggered by 1-800 Contacts's site.
Also, remember that not all adware is malicious and sneaky. Some people actually think highly of Opera. GetRight was one of the first adware programs I knew of. Broadcast TV and radio are "adware" even.
I know this will sound completely nuts to most of you, but even the "evil adware" programs aren't always unwanted. A friend was cleaning up a customer's PC for them. He told them that they had Gator on it, and he was going to remove it because of the bad stuff it did. "But how will I remember all my passwords?" Yes, someone actually used Gator on purpose. I can't say whether or not they specifically installed it, or if it came as a "value added bonus" with some other program. But for that user, it really did add value. Along these same lines, it's very possible that someone could actually want WhenU's software on their PC, letting them know of all the great deals they could be getting.
I should not have to dig through an install list to see if there is *anything* hidden in there
I'm not paranoid about cookies, but why do I have about 15 of them that originate from Slashdot? When did Slashdot start requiring cookie placement from *.slashdot.org?
"someone's malicious software"
What the heck is "malicious" about adware? It shows ads on your machine.
Ever checked what malicious means?
"Having the nature of or resulting from malice; deliberately harmful; spiteful: malicious gossip."
I don't think adware qualifies as harmful or spiteful...annoying maybe.
I'm getting tired of it being called "malicious software"...it's not malicious, it's annoying, but it's actually pretty easy to avoid and remove.
Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
It is not the same as retail stores. It is most similar to outlet stores, stores owned by the company selling their own products.
Using their logic, it would be like going to an Apple store and having RIO, Sony, Creative, etc. representatives walking around the store trying to sell you their products in front of the iPod display.
Maybe I should not have drawn this conclusion. Maybe this scenario will now become legal.
People need to realize that not everything that is bad for WhenU and other adware companies is good for the public. Today, 1-800-CONTACTS is suing WhenU. If they won, then tomorrow they could be suing Firefox for including a popup stopper, armed with a precedent and using the same legal tactics.
Well how convenient!
6 76,pg,1,RSS,RSS,00.asp
http://www.pcworld.com/resource/article/0,aid,121
the only permanence in existence, is the impermanence of existence.
sweden, if we are to believe thepiratebay.orglegal responses
The point of the trademark system is to permit people to identify products to make better buying decisions. The point of the trademark system is not to permit companies to control what people can see.
When a search or site visit for one trademark gets you information about a competing product, that is a good thing, as long as there is no confusion about the fact that the competing product is different from the trademarked product you were looking for.
Even if a file is in use you can still REN it to something else. Not sure if this works on 98 but on 2000 and XP it works. Generally I rename offending files to moo.txt or some variation thereof. They'll still be in use though so you can't delete them...yet.
Reboot, and whatever was trying to launch the program/dll/whatever will no longer be able to find the file. Now, that they're not in use you can delete all the moo.txt files.
The hard part is of course finding these files. But, once you know where they are, all you need is to command prompt to make them go away.
It's not that bad though if you think about it. The people that write this crapware probably have miserable pointless lives and go to bed with a different sheep every night.
Meanwhile, they just waste a bit of my time. If the knowledge that I had to put effort into getting rid of their shit gives them just a little bit of happiness, then that's the most I could do for them.
Who breeds these people? Seriously.
Work Safe Porn
It's more like a competitor sneaking into your store and replacing all the signs with directions to thier own store! It would be nice if judges were required to have a shred of a clue about the topic when ruling on something.
AFAIK, telemarketers cannot call your cell phone due to the fact that you pay usage charges in the form of air time, and that call costs you money. If this is, in fact, correct, why can Adware and Spam artists get away with doing the same thing when the typical company pays usage charges (in the form of bandwidth) for their connectivity?
As far as I'm concerned, my company loses money every time an ad pops up. How is this lawful?
What the heck is "malicious" about adware?
I suppose there must be SOME adware that doesn't do anything but showing ads on your machine, but I've never seen it. I've seen PLENTY of adware that does more than that. I've had to remove it from people's computers, and THAT has often been a lengthy process, because of its side effects.
Adware gets installed surreptitiously, it resists removal, it modifies the operating system in ways that reduce security and reliability, it gives other adware a leg up, it acts as a channel (deliberate or not) for other more damaging software (backdoors and trojans, viruses and worms, botnets and spam engines).
This is not just a matter of "a few bad eggs". There may be a few "good eggs" among them, but the whole class of software has long since forfeited any expectation that I might give it the benefit of doubt.
Transmitting? The suckers come here to my server in Burkhina Fhaso and _pull_ the stuff from my disk here, not to mention my casino in Togo, they _send_ me their money no matter where they live, I can't help it.
I never travel to the US so the courts can do what they want.
>> If you do business in the US then you are obliged to abide by US law. Since they are selling advertising to US companies, they are doing business in the US.
I can hear the phishers and scammers laughing at you all over the world.
"If you want to do business in USA abide by US law"? Give me a break.
How bout the sites offering pointers to Bit torrents? They serve US consumers and are clearly outside the USA. I don't see "Team America, World Police" coming for them anytime soon... The entertainment industry might lobby for new laws in their own jurisdictions but they or any other entity hardly need to obey the laws of a foreign state.
http://request-header.info
A lot of adware servers are based in Quebec, Coolwebsearch being among the most prolific currently based there. But other countrys are also used, such as the Cayman Isles, and quite likely many other carribean nations too. It wouldn't be too pheasable to base ones spyware/adware empire off established landlines, it'd likely be too expensive and impractical.
I'd bet they're getting some real mixed messages. After all, they got sued in France for returning a search with competitors' ads. Granted, they probably wouldn't have been sued if the companies being "hurt" weren't French, but that's another story.
So if you voluntarily use a service (such as Google) it's illegal for that service to return ads for competitors. But if you involuntarily use a service (such as WhenU.com's) it's perfectly legal for that service to return ads for competitors.
The first world will contradict and sue itself into obsolescence.
Direct away from face when opening.
Another case of a clued-in judge with an appropriate judgment that is easily misunderstood.
The When-U folks should be strung up by their achilles tendons and roasted with blowtorches -- no question about it. But not for popping up ads! They should be consigned to hell for tricking people into installing the software.
What the court actually said is that the guy sending you the page has no say in how you choose to view it. You can read part, or all; re-read part, or block part if you'd like. You can use your own blocker, supply your own CSS, reformat for your Treo or even (hard as it is to imagine someone would want it) pop up different ads!
We should all be relieved that this right was upheld.
I think the difference is that if you specifically do business in the US with US companies or deal with US-specific brands, then you have more of an obligation to follow the rules. If you're running an untargeted site or service, you should follow the rules of your own country.
i am a soviet space shuttle
>> you have more of an obligation to follow the rules
.sig BTW.
Semantics on my part perhaps, but I think the onus still lies with the entity actually having a presence in the US to keep square with their own laws. Understandably, this will force entities in other jurisdictions to toe the line, or lose $$$.
Love the
http://request-header.info
http://www.sealandgov.com/
Has their soverignty, specifically their exclusive jurisdiction over the operations of HavenCo, been tested positive by an international court, or in defense of a suit brought in a foreign jurisdiction, like the USA or UK?
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make install -not war
At least it's a move to more intelligent advertising. Seeing ads for competing products is a lot better than the old "shove it in their face until they buy it" approach that for some reason they thought would work...
Whether you care about a country's legal decisions depends on whether the decisions can be enforced somewhere where you have assets.
So if, say, Google were sued in France and Google has no assets in France then Google can safely ignore the decision provided no non-French court would enforce the decision.
In this case, WhenU is a US company, so where it happens to keep its servers is quite irrelevant - it owes its legal status to US law.
Courts take a very broad view of their jurisdiction.
Hell yeah, just look at how you guys keep prisoners away from US jurisdiction in Guantanamo Bay. It would be illegal in the US.
Apparently the best place for offshore servers with illegal content could be on Cuba. I am sure that's where CIA has their datacenter.
Offshore servers are pretty useless. If you're transmitting to the US you can be held to answer in a US court. Regardless of where your server might happen to be, if you have assets in the US banking system, they can be siezed. Likewise, if you set foot in the US, you can be arrested. Courts take a very broad view of their jurisdiction.
If you and your server aren't in the US, have no assets in the US, will never set foot in the US and are infact in a country that doesn't give a shit about the US and it's laws, it really doesn't matter a damn if a US court finds you guilty of breaking some US law - there's nothing they can _do_ about it.
IANAL, but I also think there's a difference between doing business in the US and providing a free service to people in the US (and indeed probably a difference between doing business _in_ the US and doing business _with_ the US).
If I'm in a country that makes it legal for me to put my music collection on a public web server and someone from a country where that isn't legal decides to download from that server, AFAIK that doesn't suddenly make me a criminal. (And yes, I know there have been cases where the US have pressured other countries to arrest people who have technically broken no local laws - I have no idea what the legal position is on that).
Infact, given what happened to indymedia I've got to say that it looks like hosting your corporate servers in a US-unfriendly country might be a very good plan, even if you're not doing anything illegal, just so the US can't utter the T-word and take them away for a few weeks without notice or reason - I'm guessing that losing all your servers is fairly damaging to your business.
http://blog.nexusuk.org
Unless you play online boardgames, or like certain cartoons (like that Loadstar Runner thing), is there any real need for it?
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
in Somaliland. It's not a nation, but part of Somalia where a kind of goverment exists.
Re: sig - thanks! Kinda lame, but I couldn't think of a funny way to say it.
As for the semantics -- hmm, good thought, though what about the no-call laws? The national and Missouri state ones seem to be enforceable for foreign companies due to their specifically attempting to do business in the US.
In the case of stuff like France trying to sue Yahoo for selling stuff that's illegal in France -- my problem with that is that they're still complaining even though Yahoo removed the items from the French site. Who's France (or any other country) to say what a company can and can't sell on sites intended for another country? What if I wanted to buy an item banned in France and Yahoo denied me the ability to due to some other country? Is that fair? I'm not in that other country, so what obligation do I have to follow its laws? If I go there, that's one thing, but if I'm doing something legal in my own country, on a site specific to my own country, that's perfectly OK.
(I live in the US. This is not a France-bash; I think France-bashing is silly; it's just a good example of this issue).
i am a soviet space shuttle
>In 1-800 Contacts's lawsuit against adware provider WhenU.com, the appeals court likened WhenU's ads to retail stores that place generic competitors next to brand-name products.
I suppose it would also be legal if a conpetitor pasted their advertisements over mine in my own shop window? Stupid stupid stupid.
I was walking past through the hair cream aisle as I headed towards the back for my perscription. Out popped a man, those new-fangled holograms, screaming out about the joys he's experienced with his usage of herbal viagra. I walked through the hologram, trying my best to avoid the stares by the other customers. Only a few feet more, I thought.
When I approached the counter, I quietly asked for the condoms. The man reached under the counter and placed the condoms on top. Out popped a woman, this time, who looked barely 18. She kept talking about how she loved large, hard cock, and wouldn't I want a penis enlargement since she so badly needed a larger penis than my average size. Well, at least she was targeted better than the other ads. Thankfully after putting the condoms in the plastic bag the pop-up went away. I only wondered why the pharmacist hadn't done that from the beginning.
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
Because you don't have to look at either the generic or the name brand. But a popup is like someone running around screaming and throwing things at you.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
come up with a new rack design that occupies the same floor space but can hold two distinct offerings via a physical separator. Offer the stores the alternative rack if they want to carry two competiting products and up their chances of a sale. My guess is they will take you up on the offer. If they do, then let the OTHER guy worry about whether or not HIS product can co exist in the rack you provided for free.
In reply to all the people saying, "it is like going into store X and replacing signs with those of store Y":
It is not like that!
Changing signs in a store changes the view for everyone, regardless of what they use to view the signs. This adware only affects the machine(s) on which it is installed. Your analogy would hold if one were to intercept the stream off the serving host, and replace content there.
>> France trying to sue Yahoo for selling stuff that's illegal in France
I don't know the specifics, but I suspect Yahoo has operations in France. If the French law couldn't lay a sanction against some entity within their jurisdiction, I don't know what else would force yahoo to change their ".fr" content.
>> seem to be enforceable for foreign companies due to their specifically attempting to do business in the US.
I still think they can only enforce against companies having operations or employees physically in the country. Like nearly everyone else here IANAL. Would anyone who who actually knows the law like to jump in and enlighten us?
http://request-header.info
I don't know the specifics, but I suspect Yahoo has operations in France. If the French law couldn't lay a sanction against some entity within their jurisdiction, I don't know what else would force yahoo to change their ".fr" content.
Yeah, they do, and they changed their French site to no longer sell the items... and I seem to recall reading that they were still complaining because users could still buy the 'banned' items through the rest of Yahoo. In other words, were trying to dictate what Yahoo sells to people otuside France.
If I am remembering correctly, I hope they lose, because that's awful unfair of them to start telling me what I should and shouldn't be able to buy.
But yeah, if someone who knows better reads this, do let us know?
i am a soviet space shuttle
Well, yes. They're off the radar, because the only people they do business with in the US are their victims. And they do work on the basis that they're criminals.
Adware makers need to do some business in the US with other US companies. You can't prosecute the adware companies if they do anything wrong, but you can prosecute anyone who buys services from them if they re based in the US. Most companies who want to work with Adware companies are US based.