Cingular, Others Fined For Using Adware

amigoro writes "Cingular, Priceline, and Travelocity have been fined for using adware by the New York Attorney General. The companies will each pay $30K to $35K as penalties and investigatory costs. More importantly, the companies agreed to a series of restrictions and best practices that, while they make eminent sense to consumers, will be loathsome to businesses accustomed to having their way with our computers."

Comments

How much did they make from it?

[sqlrob]

If it was more than 30-35K, this is only a cost of doing business.

Re:How much did they make from it?

[poopdeville]

Yes, but they agreed to restrictions limiting the kinds of adware they can peddle. If they violate them, they will be violating an injunction and can face very steep penalties.

Re:How much did they make from it?

[Creepy Crawler]

Dont worry, We'll absorb their mistakes.

Thats what sheeple are for.

Whose fault is it really?

[ancientt]

While I agree with the approach of making the companies using invasive software change their approach, I'm dismayed that this is probably the solution most people think should be applied.

The real fault is jointly that of the OS and consumer. Allowing software with unkown ramifications is painfully stupid. If your computer is taken over by adware because you habitually just click "Ok" instead of thinking makes you deserve some of what you get.

I'm fine with penalizing companies that do bad things, but they're always going to be out there trying to find some way to shove their ad in your face. It's the same problem we see with spam, you can't stop the spammers, the only way to dramatically improve the situation is to change the behavior of the recipients.

The bigger fault is comptuer operating systems that allow software to make significant changes to the functionality of the system in adverse ways without making it clear that this kind of change is coming.

With my OS, I have to log in a root (and I'm reminded that it is a bad idea) every time in order to make those kind of changes. I appreciate the convenience of root/administrator but everything I need to do normally shouldn't and doesn't require that kind of access. That doesn't mean that my operating system is superior (although I believe it is better) it just means that the designers didn't expect me to need to trade convenience for safety. I seriously doubt users of Unix like systems have suffered from this.

I know it isn't going to happen, but I would have thought this was the best possible response if Microsoft (blind assumption but educated guess) was fined $30 for each affected system and each consumer who did something negligent was fined the same.