Feds Asked to Take Action Against Adware Creator

An anonymous reader writes "CNet is reporting that a consumer watchdog group has asked the Federal Trade Commission to take action against 180solutions and CJB.net for unfair and deceptive business practices. The Center for Democracy and Technology submitted over 150 pages of examples of 180s bad practices." From the article: "180Solutions deliberately and repeatedly duped Internet users into downloading intrusive advertising software, according to a Center for Democracy and Technology complaint (download PDF). The company continued these practices even after it pledged to better itself and after receiving warnings from spyware experts and privacy advocates, the group said."

Comments

and it won't matter...

[flakier]

...because they will say something like it was their "partners" that engaged in the deceptive practices. Then they will say that they will watch their partners more closely in the future.

Re:and it won't matter...

[StupidHelpDeskGuy]

Yes, because the folks in Washington never change their mind. Especially if their chances for relection are hindered. It will matter eventually, we just have to keep fighting.

Re:and it won't matter...

[mordors9]

it won't matter because their is no public outcry yet at this point. Most non-Slashdot computer users seem to look at it as part of life. Nor are any of the corporate interests flexing their muscles to get the government hopping.

Re:and it won't matter...

[lymond01]

There's no public outcry because 90% of users don't know what's actually happening. "Oh, I hate these darn ads!" they'll say, but they don't know why they are there or that they can easily get rid of them. I am constantly amazed by the level of computer knowledge people demonstrate, despite the fact they are parked in front of one 8-10 hours per day. In fact, a good PhD Engineering friend of mine IMs me and asks if the web server is down, he wanted to look up someone's address on the site directory. I told him yes it was down and gave him the email address. He then asks: "Well, if the website is down, can I still email them?"

People are learning, I'll admit, but even "saavy" users don't really know much about spyware, adware, viruses, hijacking, firewalls, etc. Have they heard of them? Maybe. But they don't really know how to deal with them or even what to look for.

Re:and it won't matter...

[jonbryce]

You could boycot the companies that advertise on their software, if they are the sort of mainstream companies you might buy from otherwise.

Only one?

[catahoula10]

What about the rest of them.

Stupid adware.

[BigZaphod]

That stuff is evil. I think we should just submit them to a public stoning or something like that. Not only would it be more fun - they might actually consider not doing it again!

They had it coming

[mikeswi]

For the last two years, 180Solutions has been issuing press releases claiming that they are going to clean up their affiliates. Then an affiliate is caught installing trojans and sneaking onto computers without consent. Then 180Solutions issues a press release .....

And round and round we go.

If they spent 1/10 as much time actually controlling their affiliates as they do writing up press releases, maybe something might have been done.

pdf?

[Anonymous Coward]

good editing ScuttleMonkey, here is the missing link for PDF

180 will always be right on the edge

[putko]

180Solutions is always right on the line. They used to play really dirty, until it was illegal.

Then they did the arms-length thing: blame the affiliates, but encourage them to break the law.

I don't see how their behavior is any different from companies that mislead people as to what they are buying or signing (e.g. I'll give you a check for a dollar -- but it is also a contract that switches your long distance service to may carrier).

Some people are stupid. Our laws assume that people are responsible and that if they sign a contract, that is them willingly singing a contract.

I suspect the problem is that some people are so stupid that they aren't really responsible, and that is especially the case when it comes to computers running spyware.

Re:180 will always be right on the edge

[drinkypoo]

Some people are stupid. Our laws assume that people are responsible and that if they sign a contract, that is them willingly singing a contract.

Not true. You can't sign away your rights. You can't for example sign yourself into slavery. Unfortunately.

No more spyware!

[BHennessy]

This will stop spyware dead in its tracks, just like how when the "spam king" got sued all spam ended. ...

Re:Throw them in jail...

[ChrisGilliard]

It's easy to say this, but how do we judge what's illegal and what's not? For instance if you install certain file-sharing software, you get adware. I think that the developer has the right to do this as long as they disclose what they're doing. I'd like to see labeling on this instead of making it illegal. Make a clear label saying this software what some might consider intrusive advertising included. I can't see anyone installing with that kind of label. Then, if they don't put the label, I wholehartedly agree with fines, etc.

Your spyware stories? Here's mine

[spoco2]

Ok... I don't really get spyware on my pcs... neither my wife or I go to porn sites (ok... in my youth I did... :/ ), I've made firefox the default browser on all my pcs, we have AVG free virus protection, Sygate Personal firewall... although, bugger... I just noticed they've discontinued that... will have to switch to ZoneAlarm now I suppose... humph. And we run Ad-Aware
  and SpyBot Search and Destroy every now and again...

But just recently I've had to clean my father-in-law's pc, and a friends one too.

Now the father-in-law's one was pretty bad, popups would launch with IE, and there was a lot of CPU activity etc. that was not accounted for... nasty stuff... but a clean with Adaware, Spybot, using Add/Remove to kill anything that looked suspect, putting firefox on etc. and we have a clean computer.

The other computer though... my GOD! On startup it would immediately go to 100% CPU usage... and once you could finally get Task Manager up it was iexplore.exe that was doing the damage... a few minutes later when it'd actually respond to a kill process and the work of cleaning it could finally take place... well... hours later and using all tools I think it's clean now... but it required all of them to get it all... with HiJack This being the final saviour to remove the last of the damage...

And what were the biggest damage makers? The damn programs that these people downloaded that claimed they were 'Spyware cleaners'... but really were spyware themselves.

EVIL

FUCKERS

they prey on people who already have pcs loaded up with spyware... and put more on.

Of course the second of the two pcs was infected so damn badly (Spybot found over 3 thousand items) due to porn surfing... almost always the cause of these things.

I don't know how the makers of these programs live with themselves... there's nothing redeeming about what they do... AT ALL.

Re:Your spyware stories? Here's mine

[lucas teh geek]

i used to do heaps of porn surfing (before i got a girlfriend) and i never got any adware.
i think the sentance you were looking for is "Of course the second of the two pcs was infected so damn badly (Spybot found over 3 thousand items) due to porn surfing with IE"

RIAA

[qualico]

Sure wish we could pit RIAA against 180.

Why is it that we can have organizations like the RIAA to protect industry interests, yet there is no one to protect the interests of consumers?

Re:RIAA

[TechForensics]

We do have one. Or actually, fifty or so. Each state (and probably D.C.) has an Attorney General with powers to sue to stop public scams or nuisances. Usually there is a consumer protection division. People have to start bugging their A.G. It takes a lot of complaints about any particular abuse to get things moving, so go ahead.. and spread the word. CC your letter to your state and federal congresspersons. Larger volume of mail equals better chance you'll be heard.

Re:RIAA

[c0d3h4x0r]

Why is it that we can have organizations like the RIAA to protect industry interests, yet there is no one to protect the interests of consumers?

Because consumers aren't the ones who have all the money.

Well, that's not entirely true. After all, corporations only get rich because consumers buy their shit. As a group, consumers actually have all the money.

The problem is that consumers are a bottom-up bunch, so trying to convince them all to support a single agenda and allocate money toward it is nearly impossible. Even if you can get a bunch of consumers to agree on the same agenda, you can't easily and effeciently pool all their funds together toward pushing that agenda. Consumers are armed with frustration, consumer rights groups (such as the EFF) are starved for funding, and even if someone at the top sets an agenda, they don't have the resources to make it happen.

Corporations, on the other hand, are a top-down bunch, so a single CEO (or small group, aka the board) sets an agenda, and they can immediately throw the tons of money they've previously collected toward making it happen. They are armed with money, they make a decision, they make it happen.

You can bet that if consumers adequately funded an organization like the EFF, such that the EFF was financially armed better than the RIAA or MPAA, you'd start seeing things change in real ways. But you can also bet that will never happen as long as corporations offer mass-desirable tangible goods for sale while consumer-rights groups only offer intangible services or mass-undesirable tangibles such as T-shirts with their logos on them.

Re:Should take action against these people...

[Elminst]

I love the final quote in that article;
"They're a pretty coin, and they're backed by silver. It's a commodity that's going up in value, unlike the U.S. dollar."

Oooo it's PURTY!!!
And going up in value? WTF? Silver is BARELY starting to recover from being at it's LOWEST value in nearly 600 YEARS (under $4 in 2002)!!
As of today, 1 oz of silver is worth $9.02. And these SCHMUCKS pay $20 for one coin. Yeah.. that's a really good investment there, buddy.

Re:Should take action against these people...

[ackthpt]

As of today, 1 oz of silver is worth $9.02. And these SCHMUCKS pay $20 for one coin. Yeah.. that's a really good investment there, buddy.

Not only that, but his digital dollars are like Enron stock. If all hell breaks loose and we suffer a depression, where do you think you'll find Mr. NotHaus? With all those reserves in the Bahamas, I betcha. Yet, people still continue to believe they can get something for nothing.

Re:And not always duped...

[Killall -9 Bash]

Its been a long time since i've used a virus scanner at home, and I'll tell you why:

1. They can only find known virii. Maybe being 'protected' from tens of thousands of viruses comforts you, but I'm worried about the few no one knows about yet, and AV software provides no protection against those.
2. They are only partially sucsessfull in removing virii. How many times have you seen "Delete Failed! click here for more info"? I've seen it a few times too many. I SHOULD NEVER EVER SEE THIS MESSAGE! This is a design failure.
3. AV software is not effective as a means of prevention. Virii come in two flavors-- trojans and worms. Trojan==idiot user clicked on BrittneySpearsNaked.jpg.exe; AV cannot prevent this. Worm==windows security issue; AV cannot prevent this. This is an over-simplification, and may not be 100% technically accurate, but you get the picture.
4. (sum of points 2 and 3) If AV software can't prevent infection, and if it sometimes can't even remove the infection, what good is it again? Its good for Symantec, its good for Macafee, and its good for IT professionals who get to say "its not my fault, I did everything i could to prevent it" next time a code red happens.

Re:And not always duped...

[afidel]

It's possible but extremely frustrating. All of my users run the majority of their software off our central Citrix servers. They run as unprivlidged users. Whenever we get a new app from some clueless software company we have to educate them in basic security practices and let them know that "Just run it as an administrator" isn't an acceptable solution. Hell I had to pull teeth and call back 3 times and ask for a supervisor before Intuit would even TRY to give me a list of the registry keys that a non-power user would need to run Quickbooks ENTERPRISE 6.0! They finally gave them to me, which I later found out was compiled by a USER of the product and posted to an unofficial support board! The whole culture of Windows software development just sucks. The funny thing to me is NT actually has one of the BEST security mechanisms (policy based fine-grained ACL's) of about any common OS yet it basically goes unused because of lack of care on the part of all the lazy developers.

Re:And not always duped...

[Nazadus]

Ok, this isn't mean tto the buy above this comment, it's meant for the guy dealing in absolutes who isn't catching a clue. I went years without AV and was clean. How do I know? I bought TrendMicro (much is _much_ better than Norton and McAffe -- I know this becuase I've replaced those with TM on other machines and those machines run much better; TM is lean) and it said I was clean. I probably won't buy AV again. Unless I get a new job where I use my laptop for anything other than home stuff and working at work... (becuase I like having Natural Selection and HL2 :)) Now, back to your point: You can't prove to me that you are 100% clean either much like you can't goto the docter and have him write out something saying you are 100% ok without spending an insane amount of money doing lots of test; Unless of course, you can get Microsoft to verify everything you can via checksum *and* your 3rd party software from the makers themselves. If you want to be insane about this, you can't have your cake and eat it too. Bloodhound is _not_ 100% effective. I run Windows at work for my firewall (ISA Server) and it hasn't ever been hacked. No, I can't prove this, no I don't go dig through _every_ file on _every_ computer to prove this, but those with other firewalls don't do the same either. I have OpenBSD at home as a firewall... So the person who doesn't have obvious symptoms (AIDS) therefore must not be infected with HIV? And what, on Earth, will prevent this? A condom won't stop 100%. What if that condom breaks? What if...? What if...? Closing one's eyes doesn't make the problem go away. Back at ya. *kisses* Stop speaking bullshit and start talking practical; Only sith deal in absolutes. Thank you.