Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
I'd take your analogy one step further; its more like walking into a shop and having the generic product thrown in your face. Thats REALLY not going to make me want to shop there
Like yourself, pissing me off doesn't make me want to shop there; I'll either walk out of the door or just browse to another site
The difference is, when I shop online, its even easier to go to a competitors store.
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!
Pop-ups probably don't sell anything, but they do generate clicks. Note how the advertisers always place popups, popunders, and popovers *exactly* where you're most likely to click by accident. e.g. My browser mysteriously loses focus, so I click to reset the focus so I can scroll. Suddenly a popover appears and I've clicked on it! I quickly close the resulting window, but somebody has already been payed for that click.
:-)
In any case, this ruling is really more about the issue of advertising on competitors sites. This ruling states that I can plug my Spacely's Sprockets product on Cosmo's Cogs website as long as Cosmo has third party advertising of some sort. Now if Cosmo was smart, he'd be using Google Adsense or a similarly featured product. He'd then be able to tell Google that he doesn't want to see my ads for Spacely's Sprockets. All of which violates no ones rights, yet everyone is happy.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
When I see something in a popup or spam, it encourages me not to buy it and makes me think of the company as a scam. My opinion of "University of Phoenix Online" could not be lower as they sometimes send me 50 spams a day.
It is like if Coca Cola decided to do an ad campaign in which they paid the advertisers to drink gallons of Coke and then walk down the streets with fly undone peeing the processed Coke on passersby.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
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.
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?
--
make install -not war
Sadly, there don't enough of people like us. I'm sure if market research showed that pop-ups had a terribly negative effect on consumers, they would cease to exist.
;)
I had a guest at my house and I happened to be watching for an issue w/adzapper and squid when I noticed they were surfing sites on my Windows machine upstairs. Curious as to why they were using a Windows machine to surf the net (I have a Mac for that) and which sites they were surfing (fearful of spyware and bullshit) I found they were surfing sites they pulled out of SPAM.
So, if this guest, who *is* aware of spam, spyware, and trojans was doing it I have a feeling that there are tons more like them.
On a side note, I brought down the Internet interface and told them to use the Mac instead, "must be a problem with the Windows computer, I'll fix it later."
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.
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?